Renting a luxury chalet in Courchevel: the complete guide

Renting a luxury chalet in Courchevel isn’t booking accommodation, it’s taking a private house with the service of a palace. But before we even talk decoration and swimming pools, there’s a question I always ask first, and it determines everything else: where, exactly, in the resort?

I’m always asked, and the answer depends less on a level’s prestige than on your relationship with skiing and with the car. Let me untangle it, this is where most people go wrong.

• 1850, the heart of the luxury: palaces, shopping, iconic tables, and ski-in ski-out depending on the chalet. If you want everything on skis and on foot, it’s here.
• 1650, Moriond: excellent skiing, full sun, quieter, ski-in ski-out possible depending on the chalet. The point nobody tells you: 1650 is on the other side of the mountain from 1850. To reach 1850 on skis you have to climb almost to the top of the area before coming down, but by car you’re there in five to ten minutes.
• 1550 and 1350, ski-in ski-out depending on the chalet, and on the same side as 1850: gondolas connect directly to the heart of the village. To dine at 1850 you go up by gondola (they close around 11:30pm) and come back by car depending on when you leave the table.

My advice, after years placing families here: don’t pay the 1850 premium if you don’t intend to use it in the evening. A very fine chalet at 1650 with a driver on call costs less and lives better than an average chalet at 1850 bought for the address.

In Courchevel, unlike other resorts, genuine ski-to-door does exist: you clip in outside the door and glide home. But the term is used for anything, and I’ve seen listings describe as ski-in ski-out a chalet from which you reach the piste after a hundred and fifty metres of walking in ski boots, which is not the same thing, especially with children and at minus five.

The only question that settles it: from the chalet door, how many metres on foot to your skis, and does the home run actually arrive in front of the house or thirty metres above it? I ask both systematically, and I request a photograph taken from the door.

Beyond square metres, it’s the service that makes an exceptional chalet, and that’s where I do the sorting. The houses I offer generally include:

• Dedicated staff: housekeeper, private chef, driver, sometimes a butler. It’s the largest gap in comfort and in price between two chalets of identical size.
• A wellness area: indoor pool, spa, sauna, hammam. It’s the most used room in the house, far more than the sitting room, check it genuinely exists and is in service.
• A heated ski room, and for the best houses, direct access to the slopes.
• A 24/7 concierge for tables, instructors, transfers and experiences.
• A garage, and its headroom. A large SUV doesn’t fit everywhere, and parking outside in January is a daily punishment.

• The number of real bedrooms. A bunk-bed cabin “bedroom” doesn’t count as a double, and it’s the number-one source of disappointment on arrival.
• What is genuinely included in the rate: does the chef cook every evening or three times a week? Is the driver on call or on fixed slots?
• What never is: tourist tax, security deposit, lift passes, equipment, firewood, drinks. The “from” line in a listing almost never states the final price.
• The aspect. A south-facing terrace in February means two more hours of sun a day, and in Courchevel, you feel it.
• The rental rhythm: seven nights, Saturday to Saturday, in high season, with no negotiation. Outside school holidays, short stays become possible again.

The best chalets for Christmas, New Year and the February holidays go six to twelve months ahead, and the finest properties re-book year on year with the families that already had them. For a week in January or March, the window is far more flexible and the rates bear no comparison.

Something few people realise: it isn’t so much the chalet that sets the price as the week. The same property can vary threefold between mid-January and New Year. If budget is your main constraint, move your dates before you drop a category, you’ll get a distinctly better property for the same money.

And one more thing: even at the last minute in a tight period, write to me. I always keep a handful of off-market properties that appear on no website.

It happens, and I’d rather say so. Below four or five nights, the logistics of a staffed chalet don’t have time to pay for themselves: the palaces of 1850 then offer better value. And for a couple without children who intend to ski every day and dine out every evening, a hotel suite with a spa stands up very well against a six-bedroom house of which only two rooms will be used.