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The "Sugarbush Thread"

dblskifanatic

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The "Sugarbush Thread"

They do have a military discount for active, reserve, retiree and spouses/dependents.

Being a veteran does not help! We will get the Epic Veteran Pass for $559 and add A Basin Military which includes veterans for $179 which a great deal on its own.

Edit: $447 with a twenty percent credit which is great for skiing Breck, Ketstone, Vail, Beaver Creek and Crested Butte and that is Colorado alone nearly 15,000 acres.

A Basin pass includes 3 days at Monarch3 Days at Taos and a day at Silverton


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Hawk

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The way I read it is that I got $200 off next year from IKON. If I had an Epic I would get $145 back because I would have had a full pass and skied over 40 days in 19/20. So explain to me how Epic one-uped me?

It amazes me how f-ing cheap most people are. This is skiing. it is not a right, it's a privilege of people who actually have the money to ski. Mountain do not owe any of us anything and I think IKON has been more than generous. Considering how much I used my pass I was expecting nothing. And as for IKON ruining the ski experience, it's exactly the same at Sugarbush. Boo Hoo if you have to wait in a line for 5 or 10 minutes instead of skiing right on.
 

prsboogie

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The way I read it is that I got $200 off next year from IKON. If I had an Epic I would get $145 back because I would have had a full pass and skied over 40 days in 19/20. So explain to me how Epic one-uped me?

It amazes me how f-ing cheap most people are. This is skiing. it is not a right, it's a privilege of people who actually have the money to ski. Mountain do not owe any of us anything and I think IKON has been more than generous. Considering how much I used my pass I was expecting nothing. And as for IKON ruining the ski experience, it's exactly the same at Sugarbush. Boo Hoo if you have to wait in a line for 5 or 10 minutes instead of skiing right on.
THIS* 1 MILLION I have not agreed with an entire post more since jointing this board.

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gregnye

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It amazes me how f-ing cheap most people are. This is skiing. it is not a right, it's a privilege of people who actually have the money to ski. Mountain do not owe any of us anything and I think IKON has been more than generous.

Considering that mountains seem to value day tickets at $50s a day, calling a $600-700" pass cheap" is a little bit out of touch. Most people aren't like us on this board. They don't ski over 20 days a year.

Go to sunday river on Ikon, they make you sign a receipt that values the pass ticket at $50. Why not just have $50 lift tickets then? Why the artificial inflation to over $100 a day walk-up rates that prevent people from joining the sport. Ikon and Epic are just shooting themselves in the foot--new generations have less disposable income. They are not going to spend $100 a day to try out skiing.

Increasing the price to make things look like deals is a disease that has overtaken all industries. Started with the clothing industry, and now it's finally entered the skiing industry. When there's so many rapidly-changing "deals" (and price increases), the customer can no longer buy stuff rationally, and must make an emotional decision.

Ikon's pass purchasing page also preys on the un-tech savy. In order to get the full discount you must click "renew pass" from your existing pass profile. If you try to add a pass to your cart, it doesn't actually give you the discount. They aren't making it easy. I have no sympathy for these companies.
 

thetrailboss

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The way I read it is that I got $200 off next year from IKON. If I had an Epic I would get $145 back because I would have had a full pass and skied over 40 days in 19/20. So explain to me how Epic one-uped me?

It amazes me how f-ing cheap most people are. This is skiing. it is not a right, it's a privilege of people who actually have the money to ski. Mountain do not owe any of us anything and I think IKON has been more than generous. Considering how much I used my pass I was expecting nothing. And as for IKON ruining the ski experience, it's exactly the same at Sugarbush. Boo Hoo if you have to wait in a line for 5 or 10 minutes instead of skiing right on.

Couple points. First, a lot of folks who are skiing and riding do have money. And frankly a lot of them are folks who are "new money" and have a sense of entitlement. It's the sense of entitlement that is the issue.

Second point: for a lot of folks they are now out of work or have found themselves with less money than expected. So folks are penny pinching. Makes sense. Plus, like any other risk, folks want to push the risk onto others. Here, folks feel that Alterra/IKON should bear the loss of the closures, not the skiers/riders. Is that right? Some say yes, some say no. It would be interesting to see if Alterra or Vail got some kind of relief from the Feds or States (unlikely) because tourism is in the toilet for now.

Push come to shove, it becomes a PR issue. Contractually, sure, they can say tough luck to folks. In these times though that poses a risk to sales and image. So the cheaper route is to pay folks to shut up.

And frankly things are really skewed right now because people are stuck at home and not skiing, hiking, biking, etc. and are grumpy as hell.
 

cdskier

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The way I read it is that I got $200 off next year from IKON. If I had an Epic I would get $145 back because I would have had a full pass and skied over 40 days in 19/20. So explain to me how Epic one-uped me?

It amazes me how f-ing cheap most people are. This is skiing. it is not a right, it's a privilege of people who actually have the money to ski. Mountain do not owe any of us anything and I think IKON has been more than generous. Considering how much I used my pass I was expecting nothing. And as for IKON ruining the ski experience, it's exactly the same at Sugarbush. Boo Hoo if you have to wait in a line for 5 or 10 minutes instead of skiing right on.

THIS* 1 MILLION I have not agreed with an entire post more since jointing this board.

Count me on board with agreeing with Hawk's post as well.

Considering that mountains seem to value day tickets at $50s a day, calling a $600-700" pass cheap" is a little bit out of touch. Most people aren't like us on this board. They don't ski over 20 days a year.

Considering that even 20 years ago pass prices were over $1000 to some of the larger ski resorts...yes, they are "cheap" at current prices especially when you factor in that you get access to a hell of a lot more than just a single ski area. High day ticket prices are a separate issue. From an inflation perspective, resorts could be charging almost $2k for season passes, yet we're paying less than half that in many cases. (Using newenglandskihistory's website for historical pricing figures...ymmv). FWIW, walk up day rates at larger resorts were also in the $50s back then. While they shouldn't be $100+ today, they should at least be valued higher than $50.

Go to sunday river on Ikon, they make you sign a receipt that values the pass ticket at $50. Why not just have $50 lift tickets then? Why the artificial inflation to over $100 a day walk-up rates that prevent people from joining the sport. Ikon and Epic are just shooting themselves in the foot--new generations have less disposable income. They are not going to spend $100 a day to try out skiing.

Essentially an Ikon partner ticket is a discounted pre-purchased ticket. So it isn't at all surprising to see it valued substantially less than a standard day ticket. Over inflated walk-up rates are a separate issue. Overall, I'm paying less now per day of skiing with a season pass than I was 15-20 years ago buying day tickets (and I'm skiing more days now and still paying about the same total per season). And fwiw, even 15-20 years ago I was rarely paying walk up rates.

The disposable income argument is perhaps valid, but does that mean ski areas should be the ones to address it and start catering to people with less money? There's a lot of factors playing into that... Overinflated college costs and overinflated housing markets are a big part of the blame. But there's also some blame to some younger people themselves that don't understand the value of money and put themselves in those situations to begin with. I've seen a number of examples in young people I know where fiscal responsibility is severely lacking. Then again, maybe it really has always been that way but is just more visible to me now.

Of course, I'd also argue that you shouldn't be going to a big resort to "try out skiing" in the first place (maybe with the exception of using a special "first timer to life timer" type of discount program). Go to a local hill that's going to be much cheaper to begin with anyway.

Ikon's pass purchasing page also preys on the un-tech savy. In order to get the full discount you must click "renew pass" from your existing pass profile. If you try to add a pass to your cart, it doesn't actually give you the discount. They aren't making it easy. I have no sympathy for these companies.

This could simply be that they themselves are new and still working out the kinks. I really don't think it is intentionally done to "trick" people into paying more and not receiving the discounts. As someone that works in IT, our perspective can often be that something seems "easy" and "logical" to us, yet only after it is released or has extensive user piloting and feedback do we learn that our "users" see things differently and we need to make changes.
 

dblskifanatic

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The way I read it is that I got $200 off next year from IKON. If I had an Epic I would get $145 back because I would have had a full pass and skied over 40 days in 19/20. So explain to me how Epic one-uped me?

It amazes me how f-ing cheap most people are. This is skiing. it is not a right, it's a privilege of people who actually have the money to ski.

Mountain do not owe any of us anything and I think IKON has been more than generous. Considering how much I used my pass I was expecting nothing.

The first part I do not think people are being cheap! I think you buy the experience you want like I mentioned in the earlier post. A lot come into play like “Will I travel?” or “Do I want to ski resorts that are closer?” or “Do I like the resorts on the pass making a fur the drive worth it?”. There is also the bang for the buck! Which I think you refer to as being cheap. I used to ski Cannon for $273 per season could I have skied elsewhere? Absolutely! But for the price it was worth choosing Cannon because the experience was good and the price was right.

I do not think that anyone on this forum expects Ikon or Epic or independents owe them anything but t here are those that do, hence the class action suits. As a result, new offerings have been crafted. So people are looking at the choices which differ for everyone.



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dustyroads

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Win,
I'm looking at your May 7th Win Word post and thinking about the season snow total. I'm assuming the 193 inches was when your season abruptly ended. If so, are you recording snow which fell after the mountain closed? I'm guessing snow that fell up to this date is more like 200 to 215". If you’re not doing it, I think season totals should be recorded from a specific date to a specific date each year. Otherwise this will lower your historical average and will not be an accurate representation or good marketing.
 

WWF-VT

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Win,
I'm looking at your May 7th Win Word post and thinking about the season snow total. I'm assuming the 193 inches was when your season abruptly ended. If so, are you recording snow which fell after the mountain closed? I'm guessing snow that fell up to this date is more like 200 to 215". If you’re not doing it, I think season totals should be recorded from a specific date to a specific date each year. Otherwise this will lower your historical average and will not be an accurate representation or good marketing.

The season total was 141" when the mountain closed on March 14th
 

slatham

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That’s correct. We picked up another 6-8” on the summit last night.

Well from what I’ve seen these last nearly 2 months the mountain certainly surpassed 200”. Heck it’s probably snowed 20” in MAY!!!
 

WinS

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Well from what I’ve seen these last nearly 2 months the mountain certainly surpassed 200”. Heck it’s probably snowed 20” in MAY!!!

Another 9” Summit and 3” mid. 1816 was the year that summer never came and it snowed in June. The result of a volcanic eruption in Indonesia.
 
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Hawk

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Yup. That was the eruption of Mt Tambora in Indonesia. Also famous for that winter was Mary Shelly hanging out with Lord Byron in Geneva and writing Frankenstein as the result of a friendly horror writing competition.
 

jaybird

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Sigi and Stein still looking excellent :thumbup:
Power to the Valley !

:beer:
 

HowieT2

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I’m down to my last Lawson’s at home. Hoping to hit the mrv for July 4. Seems to me this vt quarantine is a bit of overkill at this point. Anyone have any visibility on when it gets lifted?
 
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