Too bad.
Since I usually buy the NYS 3 in 1 that covers Gore, Whiteface and Belleayre this might be the ticket I have been looking for to drop the Peaks Pass.
-
Welcome to AlpineZone, the largest online community of skiers and snowboarders in the Northeast!
You may have to REGISTER before you can post. Registering is FREE, gets rid of the majority of advertisements, and lets you participate in giveaways and other AlpineZone events!
2017-2018 Season Passes
- Thread starter Jully
- Start date
Too bad.
Since I usually buy the NYS 3 in 1 that covers Gore, Whiteface and Belleayre this might be the ticket I have been looking for to drop the Peaks Pass.
Jcb890
Active member
Well, I for one, have reached out to them and expressed that their pricing no longer offers much value considering the prices at other mountains. I even sent them a list of a bunch of the pass options which are close to their pricing or may offer a better value. Hell, even Sugarbush has a pass option that comes in lower than Wachusett's Gold pass.
What is really hurting them is not splitting their passes up into groupings or tiers like Sugarbush has done. They just have Gold, Silver, Bronze, Weekend and Senior. No deals for kids, no deals for young adults, no deals for 30's.
When I reached out the other day, I was told their pricing would not be released until early summer. That's an absolute joke when other mountains and even combined passes are already being released. But, he did tell me I could buy next year's passes now at this year's prices... now I don't know if that means the discounted early-season price, or the RIDICULOUS current price which added $100 on. Their full-price Gold pass is $669 currently!! That's absurd. Even at the $559 we paid last year, that is ridiculous. We won't be doing that again this year... I thought we would get out there more times at night during the week like we did last year, but it just didn't happen as much this season.
Wachusett can either choose to be proactive like many of the other New England mountains, or we'll simply take our business elsewhere.
drjeff
Well-known member
If you've ever been to Wachusett on a mid week night between New Years and Early March, you know how strong of a weeknight program that they have, and what a captive school audience and race league audience they have as well.
Their pricing, while some may not like it, is obviously attractive to their target demographic.
If anything, I'd expect some bigger mountains up North to want to enter in to some venture with Wachusett to get their extensive customer base interested in trying something different and bigger up North some weekend. This has certainly been the case in the past.
Wachusett is really in a category of it's own in the Northeast given its size, location to a sizeable population base and GOOD market share
Wachusett doesn't need other mountains to entice more pass sales as much as other mountain would like to have access to Wachusett's customer base to increase their own resort's exposure to Wachusett's customers...
Their pricing, while some may not like it, is obviously attractive to their target demographic.
If anything, I'd expect some bigger mountains up North to want to enter in to some venture with Wachusett to get their extensive customer base interested in trying something different and bigger up North some weekend. This has certainly been the case in the past.
Wachusett is really in a category of it's own in the Northeast given its size, location to a sizeable population base and GOOD market share
Wachusett doesn't need other mountains to entice more pass sales as much as other mountain would like to have access to Wachusett's customer base to increase their own resort's exposure to Wachusett's customers...
Last edited:
Angus
Member
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2005
- Messages
- 961
- Points
- 16
WaWa is making what we can assume to be profit maximizing pricing decisions. I can't blame them. Their product is sound and they are investing in their operation continuously. What seems to get lost in all these discussions about length of season, snowmaking, ticket/pass pricing, et cetera is these are for-profit entities. With that said, I will NOT be renewing my WaWa season pass next year!
At the same time it is interesting to think about comparing the public vs private companies. Public companies are under a big microscope to maximize profit and drive value for their shareholders. Private companies have much less of such "pressure". Sugarbush has stated they are very happy to be a private company where they don't need to answer to shareholders and can hit numbers that they believe are sustainable for the resort without necessarily needing to always increase profits or visits, etc.
Comparing Wachusett really to anyone in regards to pricing or the timing they release their pricing is pretty well pointless. They don't have any competition for probably 95+% of their target market. Where are people going to go for after school or after work turns? Ward, Bradford or Nashoba? Those are ant hills in comparison to Wachusett. Maybe Crotched or Pats, but those are a good bit further away. People will pay more for the convenience of Wachusett. Say they do drop their prices way down. Is that going to attract many people who primarily day trip to bigger mountains up north on the weekends? Probably not. I know this sucks for you and you might choose to go elsewhere, but most everyone else will not.
Jcb890
Active member
Agreed, lots of schools bus kids for their after school programs to Wachusett. It is a great setup. Even for working adults it is a great setup to be able to ski/ride until 10 PM on weeknights.
This past season, Wachusett actually went the opposite direction in terms of partnering with bigger Northern mountains. 2 years ago they had pass discounts like 50% off Mt. Snow on Sundays. From talking with Mt. Snow and Wachusett, it seems like Wachusett basically dropped the ball and didn't care about their previous discount relationships in favor of the MAX Pass.
Agreed. While I cannot blame them, I will certainly voice my displeasure. Like you, I will vote with my wallet and will not be renewing my Wachusett season pass. I think there are many more in this group also.
Jcb890
Active member
The after school market won't be affected because those programs will continue on as long as the costs stay reasonable. It is tough to compare because of that like you said.
To answer your other question, I'd say yes. It makes it a viable option for weeknights and possible weekends and makes the MAX Pass Add-On an option. Just in this thread there's 2 of us who are no longer going to purchase passes from Wachusett and I'm guessing we aren't the only ones from that category of boarders/skiers.
Good point that I wasn't thinking of in regards to the MAXX add on. I was more thinking in the context of if I'm used to skiing Cannon, Loon, Sunapee etc on weekends, I wouldn't be interested in switching to Wachusett.
Jcb890
Active member
That's probably true for most people, but I'd imagine that there's some who travel up from MA, CT, RI, etc. who might give Wachusett a chance and do a MAX Add-On so they could still hit the mountains they normally like going to.
For me, I'm from MA, so most of the NH, VT, ME mountains are hard to make into a home mountain. The best/closest (in my opinion) is Mount Snow. I was really hoping to do the Peak Pass + MAX, but that doesn't seem like an option unfortunately.
IF Wachusett allows the Silver pass to do the MAX Pass Add-On, that may make sense to use Wachusett as a weeknight option since $329 wouldn't be terrible, then we could do the MAX for another $329. Not terrible, but still not ideal.
drjeff
Well-known member
Highly doubt in their current set up, that Peak will sign on with the Max Pass - they (Peak) basically added a bunch of resort hoping value a year ago when they streamlined their pass products to include all their Eastern resorts. Pass sales were very strong last year, and as someone who skis their "flagship" resort most every weekend, anecdotally its felt like it's been more crowded than usual at Mount Snow both during Holiday periods and non holiday weekends as well, almost to the point where some of us Mount Snow regulars loosely hoped that they'd increase the adult prices a little bit, maybe to help slightly decrease the weekend pass crowds who now have Mount Snow in play on their passes who might not of before (yes we're being selfish in our apres ski beer table discussions about this ;-) )
Peak has a bunch of good data about their customer base, and frankly, with a decent customer base, they'd rather keep their passholders at their properties each weekend, spending the food and beverage dollars, random ski shop dollars, ski school dollars, potentially some lodging dollars at some of their resorts, rather than spread those dollars around, and knowing that the likelihood is that more Peak passholders will travel to other MAX pass resorts and spend their dollars there rather than MAX Pass holding people travel to most Peak Resorts and spend their money at Peak properties. It is a business afterall, and they're looking at ways to maximize their daily yield with their established customer base as well as attract the even higher yield, full price day ticket crowd
Peak has a bunch of good data about their customer base, and frankly, with a decent customer base, they'd rather keep their passholders at their properties each weekend, spending the food and beverage dollars, random ski shop dollars, ski school dollars, potentially some lodging dollars at some of their resorts, rather than spread those dollars around, and knowing that the likelihood is that more Peak passholders will travel to other MAX pass resorts and spend their dollars there rather than MAX Pass holding people travel to most Peak Resorts and spend their money at Peak properties. It is a business afterall, and they're looking at ways to maximize their daily yield with their established customer base as well as attract the even higher yield, full price day ticket crowd
VTKilarney
Well-known member
For the two people on here who care, Burke did not raise prices for 2017/2018 passes. A local family of two adults and two children pays $1,516 without the Jay Peak add-on. Rates are slightly higher for non-locals because non-local children's passes are more expensive.
Our problem is that our kids are so darned busy with other activities that it has been hard to get out to the mountain. I doubt we lost money this year, but we didn't make out too well.
Our problem is that our kids are so darned busy with other activities that it has been hard to get out to the mountain. I doubt we lost money this year, but we didn't make out too well.
Jcb890
Active member
Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree. I was just being selfish with hoping they'd combine. I realize there's almost a 0% chance they do.
We're big fans of Mt. Snow, just didn't have a good way to get cheap tickets there this year and only went once. I'm considering the Peak Pass this season and adding to that group of people you regulars despise.
Angus
Member
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2005
- Messages
- 961
- Points
- 16
I'm contemplating Ragged, Peak's Ranger or Max Pass...The Western resort option with the Max Pass is attractive plus the NE variety. I love skiing Wildcat but from metrowest Boston, it's just a killer for a day trip.
The only time I would ski at WaWa would be the weekdays. The weekends are atrocious. I would be on a Silver and Max combo like stink!! Short quick day trips and longer weekends
Sent from my iPhone using AlpineZone
Jcb890
Active member
The Silver pass makes some sense... but I can't get them to even confirm the Silver is in fact MAX Add-On viable. And they're saying early summer for pass pricing which is stupid. It sounds like they aren't changing much of anything, yet are going to take 3 months to decide pricing? Idiotic. I'm not going to sit around and wait on their pass pricing rather than jumping on a different early season deal. Terrible planning on their part.
Oh and I agree, weekeends at Wachusett are ridiculous. We went once early in the season and it was fine. But, mid-season the weekends are off limits.
Cool, thanks.
Zermatt
Active member
Just hit me that my 6 year old will be $329 on the Max Pass, but at that age she is free at most areas I would go to. Need to check some more but probably just skip the pass for her (which will not go over well)
Sent from my iPhone using AlpineZone
Sent from my iPhone using AlpineZone
KustyTheKlown
Well-known member
has anyone posted that max has added windham belle gore and whiteface?
Similar threads
