I wonder how many early purchase day tickets go unused?

[Smellytele]

Where is your condo? No matter where the condo is in northern New England a day trip could be made or hit a mountain on the day to or from your condo.

 

[BodeMiller1]

Where is your condo? No matter where the condo is in northern New England a day trip could be made or hit a mountain on the day to or from your condo.

Sunday River Rd. Sold it a couple of years ago. Very hard to get anywhere from there (assuming you could get in).

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

 

[boston_e]

Where is your condo? No matter where the condo is in northern New England a day trip could be made or hit a mountain on the day to or from your condo.

I think he said he could, but why would he do an hour drive when he could walk out the door to ski?

As to the original question, I agree with some other posters that I wouldn’t be surprised. If a solid 20 to 30% of pre-purchase tickets went unused.

 

[4aprice]

I'd be curious to know how many of these early purchase "discounted" day passes go unused for each resort in any given year? I'd guess it is not insignificant and probably a big profit center for resorts.

To add in my own personal rant - I bought a some Epic Day passes for the family in anticipation of a Colorado trip we planned to take this winter. That trip is now looking like it will not happen, so unless there is some legal way to transfer or sell these, I'll be left with 12 Epic tickets that I'll never use... ugh.

This is the stuff that really makes me dislike the current "cheap season pass / expensive day ticket" model that all the resorts use.

Fane injury, see if you can postpone use till the following season. They sure did that kind of thing for Covid.

 

[BodeMiller1]

I think he said he could, but why would he do an hour drive when he could walk out the door to ski?

As to the original question, I agree with some other posters that I wouldn’t be surprised. If a solid 20 to 30% of pre-purchase tickets went unused.

Fane injury, see if you can postpone use till the following season. They sure did that kind of thing for Covid.

 

[BodeMiller1]

^^^
"Words mean what I say; nothing more and nothing less"... The honorable Humpty Dumpty

Truer nor wiser words have never been written in stone nor pin.

When looking back at the plague, covid cost a lot of money for governments and companies. Here's the thing, some people out there have their bosses convinced they can do equal if not better from sleeping on their couch instead of under the office desk.

The only HR pro onto this is of course CATBERT The evil HR director.

So, this is why you can buy / rent office space for nothing.

 

[Great Bear]

From everything I'm reading, they're not transferable and can't be resold. If I remember correctly, you even have to assign them to a specific person in your family at the time of purchase.

Following up on this older thread - Finally looked into it and you are correct. Unlike K Tickets at Killington or the Sugarbush Quad Pack the Epic tickets are not transferrable. You have to upload a photo and everything.

I went ahead and uploaded the photos and everything, I assume they mail them out but not sure - there was not info I could find on the Epic website on that. I am doubtful that we will actually use them but at least we are all set if we do. Chalk this up to a live and learn experience.

 

[jimk]

I'd try what 4aprice said. Get a human from Vail on the phone, preferably a supervisor and give them a sob story about fears of covid, economic hardship due to inflation, job loss/transfer, health problems, or other acts of God that may apply. Sounds like you're talking about $1000+ dollars. Allowing legit customers, on a case by case basis, to bump their purchases to the next season would seem to be good business.

 

[cdskier]

I'd try what 4aprice said. Get a human from Vail on the phone, preferably a supervisor and give them a sob story about fears of covid, economic hardship due to inflation, job loss/transfer, health problems, or other acts of God that may apply. Sounds like you're talking about $1000+ dollars. Allowing legit customers, on a case by case basis, to bump their purchases to the next season would seem to be good business.

While job loss and health/injury items would be covered under the "Epic Coverage", they're not going to just take someone's word for it. You need to actually provide proof of these things (and I don't one bit blame Vail in that regard).

I hate to say this, but if someone buys something where the terms specifically say it is non-refundable/non-transferable, I really don't blame the company for not giving in to this point. When they give in for one person, it opens them up to liability of needing to do it for everyone. To me the argument in this case is a weak one. "We cancelled our trip out west and don't want to use the tickets at other resorts because it is too much hassle." To me that isn't a valid reason.

 

[Great Bear]

While job loss and health/injury items would be covered under the "Epic Coverage", they're not going to just take someone's word for it. You need to actually provide proof of these things (and I don't one bit blame Vail in that regard).

I hate to say this, but if someone buys something where the terms specifically say it is non-refundable/non-transferable, I really don't blame the company for not giving in to this point. When they give in for one person, it opens them up to liability of needing to do it for everyone. To me the argument in this case is a weak one. "We cancelled our trip out west and don't want to use the tickets at other resorts because it is too much hassle." To me that isn't a valid reason.

Right - I don't expect them to refund me - and I'm not going to get into forging proof of fake injury to get it done.

More just an expression of frustration of their pass / ticket model (and did want to confirm that you were correct about them being non-transferrable) - and as a consumer, will definitely make me think twice of trying to save money by an early pre-purchase in the future - and probably make me think twice of planning a trip to a Vail owned resort as well.

Yes, I could use them here in New England - but am not really thinking I'm going to shell out more in terms of money / hassle / extra windshield time to "not lose" at this point (and end up skiing somewhere i like less than where I would otherwise ski). With that said, I did upload the photos etc so we have them if the urge strikes us or if there is some circumstance where we end up heading towards a vail owned resort.

To the original question - i'd still be very curious to know how many pre-purchase tickets such as these go unused and are basically "free money" to the ski corporation. I bet it is a relatively significant number.

 

[cdskier]

Right - I don't expect them to refund me - and I'm not going to get into forging proof of fake injury to get it done.

More just an expression of frustration of their pass / ticket model (and did want to confirm that you were correct about them being non-transferrable) - and as a consumer, will definitely make me think twice of trying to save money by an early pre-purchase in the future - and probably make me think twice of planning a trip to a Vail owned resort as well.

Yes, I could use them here in New England - but am not going to shell out more in terms of money / hassle / extra windshield time to "not lose" at this point (and end up skiing somewhere i like less than where I would otherwise ski).

Yea...last year and this year I bought a single 1-day Epic Day pass (that my goal is to use at Stowe mid-week at some point when I use up some vacation days at work). Having a condo at Sugarbush, it is a bit difficult to drive somewhere else and go right past the SB base area to ski elsewhere, but it is also nice to get a little variety once in a while. So I do understand you not wanting to deal with the hassle and extra driving. I'm limiting my exposure and risk by only having a single ticket. For better or worse, I only have myself to worry about and don't need to try to buy tickets/plan trips for a family. That aspect can certainly complicate things.

I've had K-tickets in the past (years ago) and even though they're transferable, there were still years where I questioned if it was worth it as I was limited in what weekends I could make it up to K (this was before I had a condo so K was a ~4hr drive). There were a couple years I almost felt forced to go up there and ski on a weekend I otherwise might have skipped just to use up the tickets. Pre-purchasing always involves some degree of risk unfortunately. Just a matter of balancing that risk vs the savings of buying earlier.

Another option if you did want to still ski a Vail resort is to just wait a bit longer before buying the passes. You'll pay slightly more (for example the single day Epic Pass that I purchased is only $6 more now than when I purchased it a couple months ago). The price is still substantially under the window price though. And it now being later, you'll in theory have a better idea whether you can make the trip somewhere or not.

Is all this frustrating? Sure...but it isn't like this was hidden and some sort of bait and switch that Vail pulled. The non-transferable part is very annoying and really doesn't make a ton of sense on Vail's part...but it is what it is. I guess maybe the one argument is they don't want people buying a bunch of day passes early with the specific intention of re-selling them to people later on that didn't plan in advance.

 

[jimk]

We could - however our situation is that we already have a condo and season passes at a non-epic resort - so to go somewhere else would require us to either pay more for lodging elsewhere, or pack our stuff up on Sunday, bring it home and then do a long day trip the following weekend, or get back in the car to drive somewhere from the condo on Saturday morning after arriving at our on Friday evening, when we could just walk outside and ski on our passes.... so realistically, I just don't see us doing that.

I kind of overlooked above statement. Didn't realize you had option to use within driving distance. Yes, I think as season goes on you'll be glad to get some variety and leave home resort condo for a day-trip(s) to burn up epic passes somewhere new.

 

[Great Bear]

Another option if you did want to still ski a Vail resort is to just wait a bit longer before buying the passes. You'll pay slightly more (for example the single day Epic Pass that I purchased is only $6 more now than when I purchased it a couple months ago). The price is still substantially under the window price though. And it now being later, you'll in theory have a better idea whether you can make the trip somewhere or not.

This was the part I didn't know and fell for their marketing "hurry and buy before prices go up" - not knowing they only went up a few bucks. If I had known they were only going up a couple of bucks, i would not have worried about buying at that time.

 

[cdskier]

This was the part I didn't know and fell for their marketing "hurry and buy before prices go up" - not knowing they only went up a few bucks. If I had known they were only going up a couple of bucks, i would not have worried about buying at that time.

Yea...some other passes seem to go up quite a bit after the early deadlines. But Epic seems to be relatively small increases from what I've seen the past couple years (of course there's also always a risk that they make the increases bigger next year).

 

[abc]

This was the part I didn't know and fell for their marketing "hurry and buy before prices go up" - not knowing they only went up a few bucks. If I had known they were only going up a couple of bucks, i would not have worried about buying at that time.

You should have come here and ask!

When I switch from Ikon to Epic, I asked. Finding out the price only usually goes up by very little, I waited till almost the last minute to drop the money.

(Ikon, on the other hand, goes up quite a bit more for those who wait)

 

[abc]

.

Right - I don't expect them to refund me - and I'm not going to get into forging proof of fake injury to get it done.

More just an expression of frustration of their pass / ticket model (and did want to confirm that you were correct about them being non-transferrable) - and as a consumer, will definitely make me think twice of trying to save money by an early pre-purchase in the future - and probably make me think twice of planning a trip to a Vail owned resort as well.

You’re frustrated right now, and are directing your frustration against Vail. But I don’t think you’re being fair. You know it’s not refundable when you bought it. And it doesn’t sound like there’s a real stopper to prevent you from going as planned, only that you changed your mind…

Using those tickets in other Vail properties in the northeast is a reasonable solution. I have a hard time understanding throwing $1000 away just because you just want to ski at your home mountain every weekend without exception…

 

[Great Bear]

You’re frustrated right now, and are directing your frustration against Vail. But I don’t think you’re being fair. You know it’s not refundable when you bought it. And it doesn’t sound like there’s a real stopper to prevent you from going as planned, only that you changed your mind…

Using those tickets in other Vail properties in the northeast is a reasonable solution. I have a hard time understanding throwing $1000 away just because you just want to ski at your home mountain every weekend without exception…

Right - I accept that I didn't really study this well ahead of time and didn't think about it much as our plans were pretty firm - but sometimes things change. I admit my assumption would have been that they were transferrable similar to a K TIcket of Sugarbush Quad Pack.

I could use them, but as you correctly pointed out earlier in the thread in order to "not lose" I'll have to end up paying out of pocket in other ways (your words) I did upload the photos etc so maybe there will be a day that we head to Stowe or Okemo for a day, but as CD correctly mentioned, it is hard to drive away from your home resort on a Saturday morning (especially after arriving late Friday night). I don't really imagine the situation where I'd pay for lodging somewhere else in New England.

One thought I did have is that perhaps we might be most likely to use them if we brought our stuff home and went night skiing at Crotched once or twice for a goof. I have not been there in years since long before they had closed and reopened. Who knows if we will though and in a way it would seem funny to use tickets indented for Breckenridge going night skiing at Crotchet.

With all that said - none of this was really even the point of this tread. The experience did get me thinking about how many of these pre purchase tickets / vouchers (or even season passes) go unused. I imagine the number is not insignificant and must be a pretty big profit center for these resorts (and a profit center where they really don't have to do anything in return).

 

[jimk]

Your dilemma can apply to a lot of stuff. I bought airline tickets for my wife and I in early 2021 during the pandemic. At the time fares were really cheap. One roundtrip from the East to Utah for $200. One one-way fare East to SLC for $100. $300 total. We decided not to fly. I got the tickets converted to flight credits, then got the credits extended. A year and a half has gone by and we still have no need/interest in flying. The extension was about to expire and the airline would offer no more extensions. To buy time I just purchased some flights I don't ever intend to use, but six months from now can try to change to flights I do want to use. The problem is $300 these days doesn't buy much. I suppose I'll eventually put the value towards some more expensive flights, or I might just end up eating the $300 ticket value.

 

[abc]

in a way it would seem funny to use tickets indented for Breckenridge going night skiing at Crotchet.

Would you have purchased a 4 day ticket for Breckenridge only if one were offered (and with the same discount)?