Let's not beat about the bush. Ski holidays aren't cheap. There's not just the travel and accommodation to think of, but ski hire and lift passes, too - as well as the inflated prices in the mountain restaurants and bars.
So it's no wonder that at some point in the trip, usually about the time they walk out of the lift-ticket office £150-£200 lighter, many skiers and snowboarders decide, "Enough - the vault at the National Bank of Me is closing. I'm not getting sucked into any more expense."
Which is a crying shame - because if they went the extra mile financially, they could vastly enhance the quality of their trip. A couple of hundred quid would do it. And these experiences can add so much to your skiing holiday, it's well worth cutting back on other things - trading down, say, from a hotel or chalet to a self-catering apartment, and eating packed lunches from a rucksack - in order to afford them.
Here are the three best ways to make more of the mountain.
Become a better skier or boarder
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Ski school isn't just for beginners. Many people think it unnecessary after they've learnt how to link a basic series of turns, and in doing so condemn themselves to a lifetime of scratching round on the easier kind of intermediate slopes. It's one of the reasons why the Brits are so fixated upon the quantity of pistes, rather than the quality of the terrain, and end up skiing the same handful of mega-resorts every season - along with every other die-hard piste-basher in Europe. We pay a premium for the privilege (because demand is so high), and endure crowded slopes and lift queues in the process.
Far better to target a new skill every holiday, and pay for someone to show us how to tackle it. It could be bumps, jumps or powder - or simply a steeper grade of groomed run. But whatever it is, the time and money invested will reap big rewards.
Of course, you need to be realistic about how far you can travel in the course of a week. Don't try to become a mogul master if you've only just worked out how to get down a gentle blue. It's also worth reflecting on how you, personally, like to learn. Do you like to have new skills explained to you? Or do you prefer to play follow-my-leader and learn by watching, rather than listening? If it's the former, you need to sign up with a British ski school based in the Alps (or go to North America). If it's the latter, you'll be able to enrol with a local outfit, which is usually cheaper. Being told to do little more than "bend ze knees" repeatedly doesn't matter if you're actually watching what your instructor does rather than listening to what he or she says.
Tracking down a British ski school is easy - there are full listings on websites such as www.welove2ski.com and www.skiclub.co.uk, and they commonly charge about £130 for a week's course of morning lessons, compared with about £100 at a locally run ski school. Two-hour private clinics range between £95 and £115 in the Alist resorts, and here the price difference between the Brits and the locals is less clear cut. Except in Italy, where two hours of one-on-one tuition with the local ski school Cervino (00 39 0166 949034, www.scuolacervino.com) in Cervinia costs just £45.
Enrolling on a week-long specialist camp is even more rewarding. My favourite comes courtesy of the Warren Smith Ski Academy (www.warrensmith-skiacademy.com), based in Verbier, which runs five-day all-terrain classes for a range of ability levels for £329pp. There are places available on the March 15 and April 12 courses, and Peak Ski (01442 832629, www.peakski.co.uk) still has cheapish chalet accommodation in the resort for £460pp, half-board, not including flights and transfers, for the first week. Also worth checking out are the ski camps organised by Snoworks (0870 122 5549, www.snoworks.co.uk) and Inspired to Ski (0845 890 0390, www.inspiredtoski.com).
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Hire a guide
Nothing opens up a mountain more than a day spent off-piste with a qualified and locally experienced mountain guide. You don't have to be a hairy-chested expert in order to get the benefit, either. Last winter, I skied in Tignes with a group of Brits who were experimenting in bumps and powder (but by no means masters of either), who were joined on the last day of their trip by local guide Philippe Epailly. Epailly works with the Ecole du Ski Français in Tignes-le-Lac (00 33 4 79 06 30 28, www. esf-tignes.com - off-piste guides cost £95 for half a day) and did a brilliant job, finding fresh powder a week after the last snowfall, and carefully matching the difficulty of the terrain against the modest ability, but boundless enthusiasm, of his clients. By the end of the afternoon, everyone was buzzing. For anyone wanting to follow in their tracks, Skiworld (0870 241 6723, www.skiworld.ltd.uk has one week at the conveniently positioned chalet Les Airelles, arriving on March 8, for £799pp, half-board, including flights and transfers.
To find a qualified guide in your chosen resort, contact the local Guides Office, or the tourist information office. Expect to pay about £200 for a group of up to four skiers or boarders.
In a North American resort, a guide isn't so essential because the entire ski area, whether on-piste or off, is avalanche controlled (unless clearly marked otherwise). But they can still make a big difference to your day - as I was reminded a couple of weeks back when I had a fantastic morning in Lake Louise, Canada, with Jersey-born instructor Anna Stevens (00 1 403 522 3555, www.skilouise.com): there had only been a faint dusting of snow the night before, but she managed to find knee-deep powder all morning. Stevens's guiding is yours for £170 for three hours, for a group of up to five. Frontier Travel (020 8776 8709, www.frontier-travel.co.uk) is one of several tour operators that can tailor-make trips to the resort. Or try one of the big off-the-peg companies - for example, Crystal (0870 160 6040, www.crystalholidays.co.uk) is currently offering packages to the area for just £399 a week, room-only, at the end of February, including flights and transfers.
Leave the lift system behind
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Depending on where you holiday, there are also several ways you can leave the lift system behind - none of which, I hasten to add, should be attempted without the company of a guide. Hiking is the simplest, and once the more obvious off-piste runs are skied out, guides will often suggest hiking 15-30 minutes in order to find fresh powder. Whether or not you say yes to that particular proposition depends on how fit you are - struggling up steep slopes, at high altitude, with skis or a board on your back can be a rude shock to the system - but if you can hack it, it brings enormous satisfaction. There's nothing quite like paying for your turns with your own sweat.
The short cut is to jump on a snowmobile or helicopter. These aren't available everywhere (there is, for example, no heli-skiing in France, Austria or America), and they vary wildly in price. The best-value heli-skiing I know of is in Gressoney, in Italy, where a day's off-piste guiding, plus one heli-lift, with Guide Monterosa (00 39 0125 366 019, www.guidemonterosa.com), costs £177pp. A week in the resort, staying in the three-star Hotel Dufour, including flights and car hire, costs £749pp, half-board, with Momentum (020 7371 9111, www.momentumski.com), arriving on March 8.