getting a lift to resort...

glanman

have any of you experience of getting from the airport to your resort by getting onto a tour operator transfer bus that you are not booked on? I am meeting my mates in Salzburg who have flights, trans and accom booked with an operator. Their operator wants to charge crazy money to get me onto the bus so I am thinking of chancing my arm and giving the rep from any one of the operators buses going to my resort cash in hand on the day... surely they could get one person onto the bus, their is always an empty seat here on there on them... worth the risk or should I just book trains?

Overflow

How much are you thinking of giving them and what resort are you going to ?

glanman

I am think €30/40 would get me onto one, its money into the reps pocket like, going to Mayrhofen

Overflow

glanman wrote: »

I am think €30/40 would get me onto one, its money into the reps pocket like, going to Mayrhofen

You could get the train from Salzburg to Mayrhofen for that price.

glanman

Ya I have looked into that too but a bus would probably be handier as I wouldn't have to change train, I would have to change three times for that line with the time of my flight coming in and it would take 3 to 4 hours!

I will probably get the train back as it is only 1 transfer and takes 2 and a half hours. It also avoids the risk of not getting on a bus in time for my flight!

opinion guy

Not tried this.
Transfer prices are gone insane in my opinion. Taxis are particularly flogging people - its very easy to find 4 figure transfer sums for taxis. Four figures!!!!!

flikflak

When are you going? In high season they will pack the buses to the max if they can.

You are flying into Salzburg which is quite a way from Mayrhofen. I repped Mayrhofen one summer and it was the furthest resort that used SZG. You could be unlucky and have to drop off at every resort on the way to Mayrhofen.


You might be better off waiting until you get to the airport and talking to the airport manager for the tour ops there. Then you can try to haggle a price and go to a few different ops. For example there are a few desks (Crystal/Thomson/FC, Inghams, Neilson) at the airport.

Dont think you will find many reps that will take your cash from you in the car park. There is usually a coach park manager too (I know cause I was one for a few winters) that would log when buses left and how many pax were on them.

zagmund

Forget online transfer booking sites - they seem to charge an arm and a leg.

Ring/email your hotel and ask them to arrange a taxi for you. The taxis from all the nearby (1-2-3 hours drive) resorts spend their Saturdays shuttling back and forth between the resort and Salzburg airport, so you're not asking anything special. The hotel will contact the local taxi firm, they will give you a price, and you're sorted. The taxi company will be less likely to rip you off if it comes through a hotel than through a website. There's reputations on both sides to be protected.

We were initally wary when our taxi driver who was to take us from SZG to the train station offered to drive us to St Johann for something like €100 or €120 (not much more than the train tickets) for the 4 of us, but it worked out very well in the end. It turns out he had driven Mary Robinson around the country a few years back and had all sorts of interesting stories to tell. If we tried to book that trip online I think it worked out at something like €100 per person.

z

loobylou

Also, the T/O buses will be there to meet chartered flights.
You will most likely be arriving on a scheduled flight, there may be no tour buses around.

zagmund

This thread reminded me that we hadn't organised our own transfer yet, so I got on to the hotel and checked a few prices on the web for transfers from SZG to Westendorf .

The web prices were about €240 return for 2 adults & 2 children. The hotel got on to me this morning and the best they could do was €180 return with a local taxi company. That's €50-€60 extra in my pocket. Wooh.

z