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IKON - Adventure Assurance - Due by October 1

Zermatt

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What is everyone picking for their Adventure Assurance on the IKON Pass?

I was thinking of picking Stratton as that is generally my home/closest mountain, but would I likely get a better payout by choosing all destinations? I have to imagine at least one resort will close for some amount of time.

Or roll the dice and pick a CA or WA resort since they are most likely to force a shutdown, even though I would never ski there.

As of right now I am on the default of all resorts.

Edit: Just looking at the deferral option and the way it reads is that as long as you don't use your pass you have until April 11 to choose to defer. So it makes no sense to defer the pass at anytime prior to April....just don't use it unless you are committed for the season.
 

cdskier

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Sugarbush. That's where I ski mostly. I have no interest in trying to game the system or gamble on what might happen at resorts that I have no intention of skiing at in the first place. If Sugarbush is open and I'm able to ski there, then I'm getting what I paid for. Don't really care what happens at other resorts in that case. If I pick "All destinations" or some other single resort and Sugarbush for some reason does end up being closed (And ends up being the only one or one of the only ones), then I'd get fucked on the credit. No thanks.

You'll only get a good payment from the "All Destinations" option if a decent number of resorts close since the credit gets pro-rated based on the total number of possible days all eligible resorts would normally be open during the "core season".

Now if you bought Ikon with the specific intention of hitting as many different resorts as possible and don't really have a "home" mountain, then All Destinations makes sense (or in that case maybe you also gamble on picking just one resort that you think is most likely to close).

And as you pointed out, we have until April to choose to defer as long as we don't use the pass. So if I don't like the way things look in December, I could simply not use the pass until I feel comfortable knowing that would leave open the deferral option.
 

Zermatt

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Sugarbush. That's where I ski mostly. I have no interest in trying to game the system or gamble on what might happen at resorts that I have no intention of skiing at in the first place. If Sugarbush is open and I'm able to ski there, then I'm getting what I paid for. Don't really care what happens at other resorts in that case. If I pick "All destinations" or some other single resort and Sugarbush for some reason does end up being closed (And ends up being the only one or one of the only ones), then I'd get fucked on the credit. No thanks.

You'll only get a good payment from the "All Destinations" option if a decent number of resorts close since the credit gets pro-rated based on the total number of possible days all eligible resorts would normally be open during the "core season".

Now if you bought Ikon with the specific intention of hitting as many different resorts as possible and don't really have a "home" mountain, then All Destinations makes sense (or in that case maybe you also gamble on picking just one resort that you think is most likely to close).

And as you pointed out, we have until April to choose to defer as long as we don't use the pass. So if I don't like the way things look in December, I could simply not use the pass until I feel comfortable knowing that would leave open the deferral option.

Good points, thanks.

I do have Killington/Pico and Sugarbush as backups as we also have a place close to them, but it does make sense to pick Stratton as our home mountain.
 

p_levert

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@billo, @cdskier Personally, I am all about gaming the system.

So it's a choice between picking something in VT or picking something in Canada. VT is very restrictive, for sure. But if VT basically blocks all non-VTers through a quarantine system, but keeps the resorts open to locals, how will Ikon deal with that?
 

cdskier

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@billo, @cdskier Personally, I am all about gaming the system.

So it's a choice between picking something in VT or picking something in Canada. VT is very restrictive, for sure. But if VT basically blocks all non-VTers through a quarantine system, but keeps the resorts open to locals, how will Ikon deal with that?

I'd imagine that's where Ikon would say "use the deferral option that we're giving you if you can't get to our resorts".
 

mikec142

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I'm really struggling with the options for my Ikon Pass (first time buyer). For the past 7-8 years a decent chunk of my 15-20 days come at Sugarbush. The balance come from a mix of a couple of days out west, day trips to the Catskills and maybe a day here and there at MRG or Stowe.

Just got the same email that all of you did.

My gut feeling is I leave it at All Resorts and take my chances. The second part is that I just resign myself to scrounging together day passes and defer my ikon to next year. Then comes the option of who cares, get in as much skiing as possible on the ikon pass even if it doesn't make financial sense and don't beat myself up about it.
 

p_levert

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If you want to take the Canadian option, it's an interesting question as to which resort to choose. My first hunch would have been Mt. Tremblant. But Quebec has already been hit pretty hard by Covid, which does seem to confer some level of protection. Ontario has been significantly less impacted by Covid, so maybe Blue Mtn would be more likely to get shut down. I think the Western resorts will be pretty empty overall, because of blocked borders, so probably not very likely to get shut down.

But jeez, all of this is wild conjecture.
 

EPB

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I'd imagine that's where Ikon would say "use the deferral option that we're giving you if you can't get to our resorts".
Agreed...

The best way to "game the system" is to probably just pick whichever VT resort you ski the most because:
-There's no way to truly handicap which resort is most likely to shut down across the portfolio given what we know now
-VT is probably as likely as any to shut down for the reasons already outlined
-While I hope everyone here doesn't truly "need" the insurance, it's probably best to still get value from it in the event your favorite place is shut down; why open yourself up to not being able to ski at SB AND to get no refund because you picked some random resort?
-Any chance they refuse to give a refund if you pick the "right" Canadian resort when we can't even vacation there? Not sure that the controls are that tight, but might not be worth finding out.

Sent from my VS988 using AlpineZone mobile app
 

p_levert

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I went with Blue Mountain in Ontario for my adventure assurance resort. I have no particular plans to actually go there, which makes me a shameless first worlder trying to game the system.
 

boston_e

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The second part is that I just resign myself to scrounging together day passes and defer my ikon to next year. Then comes the option of who cares, get in as much skiing as possible on the ikon pass even if it doesn't make financial sense and don't beat myself up about it.

The thing is with where they set the price point of these passes vs day tickets, you would really have to find some pretty amazing deals on day tickets to not make the cost of the ikon pass justify itself. Really you only need to get in 6 to 8 days as compared to the window ticket rates to start to make the pass start to "pay off".
 

abc

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The thing is with where they set the price point of these passes vs day tickets, you would really have to find some pretty amazing deals on day tickets to not make the cost of the ikon pass justify itself. Really you only need to get in 6 to 8 days as compared to the window ticket rates to start to make the pass start to "pay off".
But you're only comparing prices on the big "resorts".

There're plenty of smaller mountains that are just as much fun, with less crowd, that cost a lot less in day tickets even at window price. With a bit extra hunting, you can easily "break even" for well over 10 days.
 

mikec142

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The thing is with where they set the price point of these passes vs day tickets, you would really have to find some pretty amazing deals on day tickets to not make the cost of the ikon pass justify itself. Really you only need to get in 6 to 8 days as compared to the window ticket rates to start to make the pass start to "pay off".

Normally I would disagree with you as I would buy a bunch of quad packs from Sugarbush and get my average daily cost down to ~ $65. I estimated I would need to ski 15 days to break even. However, since SB isn't selling quad packs this year, if I assumed advanced purchase costs (hate to plan in advance like that) I would have to ski about 9 times to break even. SO, in this crazy year, you are pretty much spot on. But the assumption is that I even get to ski at all. Fingers crossed.
 
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