Courchevel and its grand hotels

Four. The five-star hotels we list in Courchevel & the French Alps are Les Airelles Courchevel; Cheval Blanc Courchevel; Le K2 Palace; and Four Seasons Resort Megève, on the Mont d'Arbois at Megève. Alongside them we keep two four-star addresses, each listed at exactly the tier it holds: Fouquet's Courchevel (formerly Hôtel Barrière Les Neiges), on the Bellecôte slope of Courchevel 1850; and Airelles Val d'Isère, in Val d'Isère. Each has its own page, reached from the list above, with a concierge behind every stay.

Four of the six sit in Courchevel 1850, the highest of the Courchevel villages and the one where the hotels stand on the pistes themselves – Les Airelles Courchevel and Cheval Blanc Courchevel on the Jardin Alpin slope, Fouquet's Courchevel (formerly Hôtel Barrière Les Neiges) on the Bellecôte slope and Le K2 Palace on the Rue des Clarines – with the lifts of the Trois Vallées, Méribel and Val Thorens beyond them, and the shops and restaurants of the resort a few minutes downhill. One is in Val d'Isère, an hour and a half further up the Tarentaise: Airelles Val d'Isère, at the foot of the Face de Bellevarde, with the lifts to Tignes on the same pass. One is in Megève, on the Mont Blanc side in the Haute-Savoie: Four Seasons Resort Megève, on the Mont d'Arbois above the village, ski-in and ski-out, with the Mont Blanc massif across the valley. Choose Courchevel 1850 for ski-in/ski-out doors and the biggest linked ski area; Val d'Isère for the higher, steeper skiing and a village with an old center around its church; Megève for the quieter, more private of the great French resorts and a village with a medieval square.

Winter only. The resorts open in December and close in April – Val d'Isère, higher and with the Grande Motte glacier at Tignes next door, usually a little earlier and later than Courchevel – and every house we list opens for that season and closes for the rest of the year; the concierge confirms the dates of the house you want before you book. The weeks around Christmas and New Year and the French and British school vacations in February are the valleys at their fullest and are taken months ahead; early December and late March into April bring quieter pistes and longer afternoons on the terraces. Summer in the villages – walking, cycling, the lifts running for a few weeks – is another season, for which the houses here are not open.

Geneva and Lyon-Saint-Exupéry are the airports – about two and a half to three hours by road to Courchevel or Val d'Isère, with Chambéry and Grenoble closer but with fewer flights; the hotel arranges a driver from any of them. Courchevel has its own altiport above 1850, for private aircraft and helicopters, and a helicopter from Geneva is under an hour. By train, the TGV from Paris – and the winter Eurostar from London – reach Moûtiers for Courchevel and Bourg-Saint-Maurice for Val d'Isère, each about half an hour to an hour by car from the resort; for Megève the station is Sallanches. Once there, no car is needed: the hotels are on the pistes and the concierge drives you down into the villages.

Courchevel is one of the three valleys of the Trois Vallées, with Méribel and Val Thorens, the largest linked ski area in the world with some six hundred kilometers of pistes on one lift pass, and the Courchevel side keeps the gentlest, best-groomed runs and the tree-lined pistes down through the villages – with a ski school and guides the concierge books for you. Val d'Isère shares its area with Tignes – higher, with the Bellevarde face that hosted the 1992 Olympic downhill above the village and the glacier at Tignes for the earliest and latest snow. Both resorts keep the off-piste for the guides, and both have restaurants on the mountain the concierge reserves at lunch.

Search your dates on the hotel's page to see reference rates, then send the concierge a request. The concierge confirms exact rates and availability with you before anything is booked, and any payment and its timing are set out before you confirm.