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Prices
Click here for an overview price chart (the base prices of all of our trips*, in $US, $C and €).
These charts use Adobe Acrobat (download here if you are one of the 3 people who don’t have it).
*Trips Whose Prices Vary by Departure
The trip prices for each departure are on the trip-specific pages, not on the chart, which shows only an average figure. Follow the links, below, for details:
Two Weeks in France
France & Italy 2-week Combos
Tour de France
For legal, tax, and currency market fluctuation reasons, your country of residency determines the currency of your account.
On this page:
How to Interpret Our Trip Prices
For legal, tax, and currency market fluctuation reasons, your country of residency determines the currency of your invoice. People who reside outside of North America will have accounts in €uros.
Dollar Prices: two components are included in our $US or $C(AD) prices.
(1) The Trip
From the assembly point, where we start riding, to the disbanding point, where we stop.
Travel to and from the trip (from wherever you are) is not included, though we are able to help arrange it.
(2) Bike Rental and Shipping
A vast majority of our guests use our bikes, which we ship to and from the trip.
If you are thinking of bringing your own bike, our treatise on the topic can be found here: “Pros & Cons Bringing Your Own Bike.” We offer a discount on $ trip prices if you do (bike rental and shipping is not included in € prices).
Euro Prices: our (lower) €uro prices include only the trip. They do not include Bike Rental or Shipping.
We differentiate this way because it is easier for Europeans to bring their own bikes, and many do. Hiring our bikes is, of course, possible at additional cost. And it is generally the most convenient thing to do for people from continents other than Europe, who nonetheless sign up in €uros (Aussies and Kiwis come to mind). The cost of doing so is shown on each trip page.
Jump to: Optional Extras — Connecting Trip Prices — Other Discounts
Are Trip Prices Set for the Year?
No. Trip prices are subject to change, and do, as currencies fluctuate.
Locking in Your Trip Price
Making a deposit on a trip secures a space, but does not lock in the trip price. The price for your trip will be the one in effect when you make your final trip payment. See locking in prices for details.
However, once you make a deposit, you are guaranteed that prices will increase by no more than 10% from those in effect at the time of your deposit.
Should prices fall, you will benefit from the decrease regardless of whether or not you have paid in full for your trip. However, we tend to use extra funds harvested this way for a treat on the trip (a special dinner or hotel, for instance), rather than to rebate funds. This is because the rebate would typically be minor: shared equally amongst all those who have signed up, regardeless of when they paid. So, the funds are typically better to do something special on the trip. In general, prices move in only one direction within a calendar year: up.
Jump to: Interpreting Trip Prices — Connecting Trip Prices — Other Discounts
Optional Extras
These are things you can buy from us, but don’t need to.
The prices of these first three are in the “Facts & Figures” table, at the bottom of the page describing each trip. The links below take you to explanations.
- Baggage Transfer Services help you move your luggage around Europe, and store it if necessary, while you cycle.
- Private Single Rooms are available for solo travellers who prefer their own rooms.
If you are willing to share, you may travel with us at the regular price, whether we find people for you to share with or not.
- Bike Rental and Shipping. This is an optional extra only for riders paying the (otherwise lower) €uro-denominated prices. The bike, and its shipping charges, are included in $-denominated prices.
“Access Packages” help you travel to and from the trip from a major European airport city, or from London. Their prices are detailed on the pages which discuss the packages (each package has many variants).
Air service to places like Souillac is limited. Even ox cart service to places like Monforte de Lemos is limited. If you are flying from another continent, you are generally going to need to arrive via a real city, such as Paris, and travel from that real city to the small town where your bike awaits. Our “Access Packages” help you do so.
One note, mentioned here because it can influence your thinking regarding “Access Packages:” if you are pondering a railpass for further Euro-travel, book it through us (there is never any extra charge to do so: we guarantee the lowest railpass prices available). We can integrate your pass with “Access Package(s)” and / or with your cycle trip, and generally offer savings. At worst, you wind up with free or discount first class upgrades, reduced cost reservations, or similar. If things go wrong (strikes, fire, brimstone...), we can only help you change your plans if we issued the pass. And we are also expert at getting passholders on sold-out trains. But only if we have the internal agency code for the pass....
Jump to: Interpreting Trip Prices — Locking in Prices — Optional Extras — Other Discounts
Pricing of Connecting (Sequential) Trips
We give some thought to our trip creations, such that they make cultural, aesthetic and athletic sense. But vacation times and dreams do not always coincide. Moreover, you may have your own ideas on the topic.
To let you create your own ideal vacation, we allow you to sequentially connect any of our trips, and price the combination such that it represents value comparable to that of our own, longer trips. In addition, travel and lodging necessary to link the two trips are included in the connecting price, and arranged by us.
- To see whether two given trips are considered to connect or not, follow this link.
- For discount pricing of non-sequential trips, see below.
Call us for the exact prices of connecting trips. But to help in your planning, you can get within 10% of the total cost of your made-to-measure trip by using this formula:
- Look up the price for your 1st trip.
- Consider your connecting trip as a certain number of weeks. If a connecting trip is the 2nd week of your overall trip, its base price will be about $1,600 US / $1,650 C, including the bike (1,050 €, not including the bike), and including travel & lodging necessary to link the trips. The 3rd & subsequent weeks will cost $1,200 - $1,300 US (a bit more in $C), 800€ - 850€, but not including the bike. Travel in Tuscany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, or on our Northern Europe route is a bit more expensive. Travel in Portugal is less expensive, as are trips ending with less-than-full-week itineraries such as Champagne, Southern Burgundy, or Provence.
- Private single rooms, baggage transfer services, are the sum of the costs for the individual trips, less 10%. Bike rental and shipping charges, which apply in €uros only, are the sum of the costs for the individual trips, less 20%.
This calculation will give you the approximate cost for your trip. To add “Access Packages”...
- Add the pre-trip “Access Package” for your first trip, and the post-trip “Access Package” for your last one. This will cover the cost of reaching and leaving your trip via the most convenient airport(s).
For example, to add one 2-week trip to another, you would pay the regular price for the first 2-week trip. The second 2-week trip corresponds to the 3rd and 4th weeks of your overall trip. Using the US$ as currency, you would thus pay roughly $1,200 + $1,200, or $2,400, for this second 2-week trip. Invitational or grad student discounts (see below) would then apply to the total price of your four-week program. Private single rooms and baggage transfer services (if any) would be additional.
“Access Package” costs would depend on the trips you selected.
Jump to: Interpreting Trip Prices — Locking in Prices — Optional Extras — Connecting Trip Prices
Other Discounts
We offer family pricing on any regularly-scheduled trip departures designated “Family-Friendly.” Details are available on our “Family-Friendly” introductory page.
EEC funding allows us to offer an “educational discount” full-time graduate (post-4 year university) students, studying at institutions not located within the EEC, on trips or trip combinations of 19 days or more. We have expanded this discount on our own to cover educators, and some graduating 4-year university students... follow this link for details of our Grad Student Discounts and Educator Discounts.
We offer discounts to groups of 6 or more on off-peak trips (12 or more if the trip is a charter, or other guest-initiated trip). But try not to get excited: even if we give you back half of what we earn (the maximum), that is still only a 10% discount. Most of your funds go to suppliers like hotels, railroads, bike suppliers... and they don’t offer us any additional discounts.
We have a program of invitational alumni discounts. These are notified by e.mail once or twice a year, and are sometimes substantial discounts, available for a limited time, on certain trips (until the budget given to the operation runs out). Obviously, if we don’t have a current e.mail address, or your spam filter doesn’t like us, you aren’t seeing these: you can check for them on our alumni “Secret Squirrel” web page. Now where did you leave that decoder ring?
Guests who bring their own bikes qualify for a discount on $ prices, though it is usually eaten up by the airlines (the discount, not the bike. Though that has been known to happen, too). A discussion of those issues is here.
And finally, if you take more than one non-connecting trip in a single calendar year, the more expensive is charged at its regular price, and all others receive a 10% discount.
Connecting trips are subject to special pricing, as above.
These discounts are only available if you book directly through one of our offices. Travel agents, please enquire about “net” pricing of group trips.
Jump to: Interpreting Trip Prices — Locking in Prices — Optional Extras — Connecting Trip Prices — Other Discounts
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