What is you lift ticket strategy?

Cannonball · Mar 13, 2015

abc said:
(That said, cheap lodging typically comes with compromise in quality. Cheap lift ticket is pure saving since we're skiing on the same mountain)

Not always true. In fact you already made the point earlier about searching for best conditions rather than pre-committing to deals and passes. The point being, often times a cheap lift ticket really is a compromise on quality since it might limit your options of where to go. I agree with what you said before: "I'm happier to ski powder or soft bumps for $45 over skiing frozen crust for $20"

mbedle · Mar 13, 2015

Season pass here at the local hill which works out pretty good. Spend February up at Stowe and the cost of lodging/food far out weights the cost of lift tickets. Same holds true for Stowe during the last week in March and Christmas break at Stratton. Still purchase discount club tickets for Stowe and use the available ski club days.

steamboat1 · Mar 13, 2015

C-Rex said:
I'm assuming your club has a property somewhere? I'd love it if ours did but I think it'd be more trouble than it's worth for us club officers. I'd love to see more partnership with lodging companies and private owners though. I'll have to look into that...

Yes, the club rented houses for a few seasons in the late 50's early 60's. We bought our present lodge in 62 or 63. Lodge sleeps 50 people comfortably & is pretty full most weekends during the season. The lodge was a hotel at one time & is beautiful inside & out. For several years now I've been able to ski mostly weekdays & more times than not have the lodge to myself during the week. Pretty good location too being only 15 minutes from Pico & 10 minutes further to Killington. Mad River Valley areas are an hour north, Bromley, Stratton & Magic an hour south. Okemo is about 40 minutes. Being K/Pico are so close is the reason I buy a season pass for them. Between the season pass, other discounts & inexpensive lodging makes skiing very affordable for me. If I didn't have that I wouldn't ski nearly as much as I do.

ScottySkis · Mar 13, 2015

C-Rex said:
I'd love a pass, but there isn't a mountain close enough to me to really justify it. I'd get sick of the crowds at Mount Snow, and probably a little bored with the Mountain. Plus their pass is expensive. Berkshire East has a good deal, but without good natural snow I think it'd be kinda lame. I'm waiting to see how their new snowmaking does next year. Anywhere else is too far to drive all the time. I just need to move farther north. That would solve a lot of my problems.

The Max Pass is really tempting. I'm definitely on the fence with that. Between just Stratton, Killington, and Pico, that's 15 days at $46.60/day. Not too bad. Throw in a long weekend up to Sugarloaf and Sunday River and it just gets better. Then add a trip out west...Gravy!

Sunday Pass only is I always something I consider for Mountain Snow.

I might due platty they had deal with Bolton a valley and magic for lift tickets so I wish I had .

Grizzly Adams · Mar 13, 2015

I've had some great luck at Gunstock through Liftopia, usually around 30% off, even the day before.. being within reasonable day trip distance from me I've skied there on a whim a few times and never had to pay full price

dlague · Mar 13, 2015

Cannonball said:
Not always true. In fact you already made the point earlier about searching for best conditions rather than pre-committing to deals and passes. The point being, often times a cheap lift ticket really is a compromise on quality since it might limit your options of where to go. I agree with what you said before: "I'm happier to ski powder or soft bumps for $45 over skiing frozen crust for $20"

Just take what the mountain gives you!

HD333 · Mar 13, 2015

Season passed for the family at Okemo. First year not getting a mid week pass at Wa Wa for me.
We will hit a few mountian other than the home mountain. Usually look for a discount with our passes, if not I'll try Liftopia if we have concrete plans.

Got my kids the 5th grade VT Passport this year and used a few of those, at $10 you can't beat it, although you need to buy 1 adult full price ticket, still saves some $.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

dlague · Mar 13, 2015

HD333 said:
Season passed for the family at Okemo. First year not getting a mid week pass at Wa Wa for me.
We will hit a few mountian other than the home mountain. Usually look for a discount with our passes, if not I'll try Liftopia if we have concrete plans.

Got my kids the 5th grade VT Passport this year and used a few of those, at $10 you can't beat it, although you need to buy 1 adult full price ticket, still saves some $.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

They do the adult ticket now? When we used it that was not a requirement and we used other discounts like 2 fers for the rest of the family.

C-Rex · Mar 13, 2015

Unless I lived under an hour away from a great mountain I don't think I could buy a pass to just one place. Even if it were a good deal, I'd get bored with one mountain, and would be annoyed if conditions were a lot better somewhere else. I like variety, and I'd rather pay a little more to ride the best conditions I can get to. Quality is so much more satisfying than quantity. Give me 20 epic powder days over 30 groomer days every time.

dlague · Mar 13, 2015

C-Rex said:
Unless I lived under an hour away from a great mountain I don't think I could buy a pass to just one place. Even if it were a good deal, I'd get bored with one mountain, and would be annoyed if conditions were a lot better somewhere else. I like variety, and I'd rather pay a little more to ride the best conditions I can get to. Quality is so much more satisfying than quantity. Give me 20 epic powder days over 30 groomer days every time.

Up until last season, I would have agreed with you. However, we got a Cannon pass (just over an hour away) and we have not gotten bored with it yet. Then again we have only skied there like 12 times so far and skied 16 different skied areas this season so far.

boofenstien · Mar 13, 2015

Can't beat that Sugarbush For20's deal. $300 last year and $330 this year. Debating on what to do next year.

xwhaler · Mar 13, 2015

boofenstien said:
Can't beat that Sugarbush For20's deal. $300 last year and $330 this year. Debating on what to do next year.

A bunch of mtns are doing a 20-29 pass now. Some great deals out there

MommaBear · Mar 13, 2015

dlague said:
Up until last season, I would have agreed with you. However, we got a Cannon pass (just over an hour away) and we have not gotten bored with it yet. Then again we have only skied there like 12 times so far and skied 16 different skied areas this season so far.

We used to have Mount Snow passes, but as C-Rex feared, we got bored with the mountain. Granted it took 5-6 years. My husband is a mogul skier and due to weather conditions the past few years (rain/freeze situations), Mount Snow would groom before the weekend leaving nothing but groomed terrain. So we took this season off from passes and rented our place out...go figure. You can all thank me for the great snow.

Thankfully, we continued our purchases of discounted ski club tickets so we haven't totally missed out this year.

abc · Mar 13, 2015

Cannonball said:
Not always true. In fact you already made the point earlier about searching for best conditions rather than pre-committing to deals and passes. The point being, often times a cheap lift ticket really is a compromise on quality since it might limit your options of where to go. I agree with what you said before: "I'm happier to ski powder or soft bumps for $45 over skiing frozen crust for $20"

Good summary. And good observation too.

I guess my strategy had been, I look at which region has the best condition (for what I like to ski). Then, I hunt for deals in that region. More often than not, I will find a mountain that offers some kind of deals. So as far as I'm concern, I skied for less than window rate.

(I don't hesitate to pay full window rate if the best condition is found in a mountain without deals. But that's really rare that one single mountain has monopoly of good snow condition.)

Now that you've gotten me to look at it a bit more closely, I had accepted terrain limitations by doing that. I sometimes ended up going to a smaller mountain instead of a mega resort. Though given my preference of powder/glade/bumps rather than groomers, size is a lessor concern for me than for others.

And I'll have to admit, I don't ski a huge number of days. Add my "roving" ski destination (dictated by snow fall). I don't get a chance to be bored by even smaller mountains.

And I'll further admit, a couple of my most favorite mountains, Sugarbush & Stowe to be exact, have relatively infrequent deals. So I have not skied them as much as I would have liked to. Though that's partly because I had too many other "lessor" mountains I hadn't quite get bored just yet (e.g. Plattekill, Pico). So the motivation to pay higher rate to ski Sugarbush/Stowe isn't terribly strong as of now.

Scruffy · Mar 13, 2015

I'm a season pass holder and deal hunter mostly, but skiing is my passion, so, if I want to go, I'm going - of course this varies year to year, depending on how the market is doing and other budgetary circumstances.

mulva · Mar 14, 2015

Next year doing Killington season passes and kids in seasonal programs. Hampton Inn for HHonors points and some free days. I'm not rich but I ain't broke. We (Me, wife, boys 10 & 7) just like to ski and this gives a lot of bang for the buck. Allows me and my wife a trip to Jackson for Steep and Deep camp and a day or 2 at Targhee. I just got NorBeaster passes and I'm in Rutland drinking a Long Trail as I type this. Heads up for those with kids... SkiVermont runs a 5th grade passport. It's just a few bucks and gives 3 "free" passes (with blackout dates) to every Vermont Ski Area. It's not heavily advertised unfortunately.

Smellytele · Mar 15, 2015

Pass holder at local hill (free). Then NEVER pay walk up window rate at the other areas I ski. 16 different ski areas for 34 days so far

C-Rex · Mar 16, 2015

I think with the right mountain I wouldn't get bored. I need a lot of glades or technical trails to keep me entertained. Some good side country would really help too. Places like Sugarbush, Jay, and Stowe would work for me, but they are way too far from me to buy a pass.

Cheap lodging would really help. If I could stay somewhere for next to nothing, I'd have no problem buy a pass to a northern tier mountain. I'd go up every Friday night and stay the weekend. Anyone got a place they want to rent me?

Grizzly Adams · Mar 16, 2015

C-Rex said:
If I could stay somewhere for next to nothing, I'd have no problem buy a pass to a northern tier mountain. I'd go up every Friday night and stay the weekend.

A group of friends and I rent a house near Newport, VT (about 10 minutes from Jay) from January through April and get season passes. When we split it between the guys it ends up being a little under $100/month/person for the house and this is the 3rd year we've done it.. we go up most weekends and usually ski Sat & Sun so we definitely get our moneys worth. It can be a haul up to Northern VT on Friday nights, normally a 4 hour trek but can be longer depending on traffic/weather, its definitely worth it for the awesome skiing up there though.

dlague · Mar 16, 2015

Grizzly Adams said:
A group of friends and I rent a house near Newport, VT (about 10 minutes from Jay) from January through April and get season passes. When we split it between the guys it ends up being a little under $100/month/person for the house and this is the 3rd year we've done it.. we go up most weekends and usually ski Sat & Sun so we definitely get our moneys worth. It can be a haul up to Northern VT on Friday nights, normally a 4 hour trek but can be longer depending on traffic/weather, its definitely worth it for the awesome skiing up there though.

I have friends that do the same in Franconia and ski Cannon. Wife and I are considering that strategy for resorts further away but for now live a hour from Cannon so not really necessary.

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