"Less than Retail" Lift Ticket Strategies

[salsgang]

With a family of 4 I plan my lift ticket dollar down to the penny. I have developed financial models projecting our planned ski trips, how much we will pay at each mountain and of course how much we will save.

My strategy is to buy a Ski Maine passbook in the fall. $525 gets us 4 tickets to all the alpine mountains in Maine. (Its already saving me money for after 1 trip to SRiver and SLoaf). Then for $20 we get a Maine Winter Kids passbook which gets our 5th grader 3 free passes to each alpine mountain with a paying Adult. The beauty of it is we can combine a Ski Maine ticket as the adult part of the winter kids. Also when possible, we take advantage of special "days" at the mountains. Maine family days, mens days etc.

To make a long story short, so far this year:

19 Day Trips
58 Lift Tickets
Actual Out of Pocket Cost - $1,041
Retail Price - $2,580
Savings - $1,538 / 60%

Are any of you day-tripper / non-season pass holders as obsessed as I am in getting as far off retail as possible? If so, what is your strategy?

 

[hammer]

With a family of 4 I plan my lift ticket dollar down to the penny. I have developed financial models projecting our planned ski trips, how much we will pay at each mountain and of course how much we will save.

My strategy is to buy a Ski Maine passbook in the fall. $525 gets us 4 tickets to all the alpine mountains in Maine. (Its already saving me money for after 1 trip to SRiver and SLoaf). Then for $20 we get a Maine Winter Kids passbook which gets our 5th grader 3 free passes to each alpine mountain with a paying Adult. The beauty of it is we can combine a Ski Maine ticket as the adult part of the winter kids. Also when possible, we take advantage of special "days" at the mountains. Maine family days, mens days etc.

To make a long story short, so far this year:

19 Day Trips
58 Lift Tickets
Actual Out of Pocket Cost - $1,041
Retail Price - $2,580
Savings - $1,538 / 60%

Are any of you day-tripper / non-season pass holders as obsessed as I am in getting as far off retail as possible? If so, what is your strategy?

When I started out a few years ago, I'd buy a set of SkiNH passes, which would give a discount of up to 50% depending on the ski area...unfortunately, the price of those has gone up considerably so they are not such a good deal anymore. I've also gone the season pass route for myself so that I have a place I can go to anytime.

Don't know what I'll do next year, but unless I have no choice I will not pay "retail" for any lift tickets...

 

[riverc0il]

Yup. I calculated out every dollar I spent last season including gas. Though I had a season pass, I also spent only 1/3 of my 52 days at my pass mountain. Pre-purchasing vouchers and keeping up to date on when ski areas have deals is a good way to go. Early and late season have good deals (especially late season when there is more terrain and not many people). Mid-week deals and two-fers. Etc. Earning a few turns doesn't hurt either but you don't see many families in touring gear :lol:

 

[trtaylor]

• Ski club discounts
• Ski shop demo day vouchers
• Mountain special pricing days
• Mountain discount card use, i.e. Hunter's Big Lift Card, Camelback's Triple Card, etc.
• eBay

 

[billski]

• Ski club discounts
• Ski shop demo day vouchers
• Mountain special pricing days
• Mountain discount card use, i.e. Hunter's Big Lift Card, Camelback's Triple Card, etc.
• eBay

+1 + a few more:
a) Remain very flexible on dates, go at moment's notice
b) signup for resort and association emails. I get a lot of discount offers about a week in advance.
c) Club pre-purchases in the summer
d) Ski shop discount tix
e) Participate heavily in trolling deals, not just on the web, but and brick and mortar etablishments. Posting and sharing (I notice many of the media outlet appear to be stealing our thunder and info now...)
f) Find passholders - they often can purchase single tickets at significant discount
g) Go to ski club meetings - often resorts and clubs have give-aways.
h) Ski midweek
i) go to the "smaller" mountains

I'm about as obsessed as they come. I have never and probably will never get a seasons pass unless they confiscate my driver's license. I'm a drifter, no allegiance to any one area and I easily tire of the same area anyways.

 

[deadheadskier]

Most definitely a deal seeker. I did get a pass to Tenney this year as it was $99 and used it 5 mid winter Saturdays when I didn't want to deal with crowds. After that, joined is ski club where I purchased 8 vouchers, have an entertainment book for some twofers, the Warren Miller deal, use liftopia and watch for other bargains.

I'll finish by season somewhere between 21 and 24 days out for roughly $500 in lift tickets having skied about 15 different areas in three states.

 

[frozencorn]

Have yet to pay full price all season.

Wachusett: Free online tix
Smuggs: Warren Miller free
Wildcat: Wildcard, four days for the price of three, plus free birthday
Stratton: Free online tix
Waterville: Warren Miller
Jay Peak: $37 with VT travel club card
Sunday River: Warren Miller

Yet to ski the Bush and Stowe with the dicount card too. Stowe goes down to $40 after April 1, The Bush is $34 Sundays after April 1.

 

[deadheadskier]

I will say that I'm leaning towards a Ragged pass (if it's $375) or a Cannon (if they still have NH resident $475 deal) and spreading the wealth around a bit less next season by only skiing 6 to 8 other times at a few different areas instead of what I've done this season. Not that I disliked my strategy, but it's more the easy driving to those two areas from my home.

 

[JasonE]

We hit the Ski Expo in Boston at the start of every season, and that usually gets us some pretty hefty discounts and free tix. In addition, this year Bromley had a web-based ticket giveaway they were running (advertised at the ski show only I think) that we also entered and won. We also, for $29 each, buy two of the RSNE discount cards because they come with two free lift tickets each, so for $58 we get way over $100 in free lift tickets.

Other than the ski show, I always buy a Wachusett pass. In addition to covering the bulk of my ski days, it also gives me 50% off at several mountains, which is great. This year both Carrie and I were college students (won't be the case next year sadly) so we were able to get the UPass for $129 - an amazing value.

Other than that, I also watch for bargain tickets (Berkshire East's $30 weekday ticket is a great deal, for example, as is Crotched's 2-for-Tuesday deal - even when skiing alone, I can usually hook up with someone in the parking lot to split the 2fer with). Honestly, only once this year have we paid full price for tickets (and that was last week we took our two nieces to Pats Peak and we paid for 4 night passes - every other time we've skied we've gotten either reduced or bargain prices).

So, this year, here's how it all stacks up:

Total Spent on Lift Tickets: $743
Total Value of Lift Tickets: $1677
Total Savings: $934

Plus, I still have 2 free tickets to Bromley that I *hope* to be able to use. And I expect to have at least 3 or 4 more days at Wachusett before they close. And one ticket at Granite Gorge I don't know if I'll be able to use or not because we are running out of season.

Overall, I think I we did good this year, but not as good as last year because the December ice storm really impacted the number of ski days I had in December, so my yearly total is way down versus last year.

Jason

 

[Bumpsis]

With a family of 4 I plan my lift ticket dollar down to the penny. I have developed financial models projecting our planned ski trips, how much we will pay at each mountain and of course how much we will save.

My strategy is to buy a Ski Maine passbook in the fall. $525 gets us 4 tickets to all the alpine mountains in Maine. (Its already saving me money for after 1 trip to SRiver and SLoaf). Then for $20 we get a Maine Winter Kids passbook which gets our 5th grader 3 free passes to each alpine mountain with a paying Adult. The beauty of it is we can combine a Ski Maine ticket as the adult part of the winter kids. Also when possible, we take advantage of special "days" at the mountains. Maine family days, mens days etc.

To make a long story short, so far this year:

19 Day Trips
58 Lift Tickets
Actual Out of Pocket Cost - $1,041
Retail Price - $2,580
Savings - $1,538 / 60%

Are any of you day-tripper / non-season pass holders as obsessed as I am in getting as far off retail as possible? If so, what is your strategy?

Something just doesn't add up here, or maybe I'm just rather dense, the Maine Skibook gives you 4 tickets fo4 $ 525? That's $ 131.25 per ticket. I'd hardly call that savings. Or perhaps the Maine Ski book gives you 4 tickets to every mountain, meaning 4 to Sunday River, 4 to Saddleback, etc. etc.
Are there any black out dates on that deal?

When the total of your tickets is averaged out, you end up spending $ 17.95 That's aboslutely fabulous.

I REALLY would like to know how you do that. I do mostly day trips, with excpetion of one solid week at Sugarloaf for 2 adults and 2 kids. I end up paying mostly "retail". This is getting close to pricing me out as far as family skiing is concerned.

It's unlikely that I'll buy season passes for the whole family bacause there really isn't enough time to fully take advantage of that, plus then, I'm really at the mercy of the weather and it's a crap shoot. I just won't ski unless the conditions are good. When time is a limitation it's kind of hard to take advatanage of ski clubs and similar arrangements.
From other posts it sounds like seeking out the Warren Miller flick screenings and the ski shows are worth scoping out.

 

[billski]

Something just doesn't add up here, or maybe I'm just rather dense, the Maine Skibook gives you 4 tickets fo4 $ 525? That's $ 131.25 per ticket. I'd hardly call that savings. Or perhaps the Maine Ski book gives you 4 tickets to every mountain, meaning 4 to Sunday River, 4 to Saddleback, etc. etc.
Are there any black out dates on that deal?

When the total of your tickets is averaged out, you end up spending $ 17.95 That's aboslutely fabulous.

I REALLY would like to know how you do that. I do mostly day trips, with excpetion of one solid week at Sugarloaf for 2 adults and 2 kids. I end up paying mostly "retail". This is getting close to pricing me out as far as family skiing is concerned.

http://www.onthesnow.com/news/a/3958/save-with-ski-maine-ticket-packs

Lifttopia is great for last minute and preplanned trips. I used it twice this year, once to Ragged, once to Wildcat.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

With a family of 4 I plan my lift ticket dollar down to the penny. I have developed financial models projecting our planned ski trips, how much we will pay at each mountain and of course how much we will save.

My strategy is to buy a Ski Maine passbook in the fall. $525 gets us 4 tickets to all the alpine mountains in Maine. (Its already saving me money for after 1 trip to SRiver and SLoaf). Then for $20 we get a Maine Winter Kids passbook which gets our 5th grader 3 free passes to each alpine mountain with a paying Adult. The beauty of it is we can combine a Ski Maine ticket as the adult part of the winter kids. Also when possible, we take advantage of special "days" at the mountains. Maine family days, mens days etc.

To make a long story short, so far this year:

19 Day Trips
58 Lift Tickets
Actual Out of Pocket Cost - $1,041
Retail Price - $2,580
Savings - $1,538 / 60%

Are any of you day-tripper / non-season pass holders as obsessed as I am in getting as far off retail as possible? If so, what is your strategy?

$1500 savings and you got to ski alot of different resorts..great value..a weekend in VT is $1,000+ for alot of families..

 

[ERJ-145CA]

Today I saved $10 of each ticket for my son and I at Mt. Peter by showing them our season passes from Hidden Valley. Skiing mid-week is a great way to save money on tickets too.

 

[Geoff]

You get the best deals if you're on the books as an employee of a ski shop. That will get you a comp ticket most places. It'll get you shop employee pro form for equipment. I did that in college when I had no money.

I have a season pass. That gets me discounts at many mountains. I have New Hampshire and Vermont licenses in my wallet. Those get me discounts that flatlanders can't get. I've gotten lots of comp tickets and employee discount deals from people I know who work at ski resorts. I've bought vouchers and discount coupons for western resorts on eBay.

I have a few comp tickets I haven't gotten to yet this season. Win Smith gave me one last April for Sugarbush that's waiting a nice spring day. I have a couple at Stratton from Warren Miller and their text message deal that are waiting for a nice spring day since there was never a midweek powder day this year where Stratton had better snow than Killington.

 

[salsgang]

Something just doesn't add up here, or maybe I'm just rather dense, the Maine Skibook gives you 4 tickets fo4 $ 525? That's $ 131.25 per ticket. I'd hardly call that savings. Or perhaps the Maine Ski book gives you 4 tickets to every mountain, meaning 4 to Sunday River, 4 to Saddleback, etc. etc.
Are there any black out dates on that deal?

Right - 4 tickets to all the alpine mountains in Maine. I buy it as soon as it goes on sale in the fall. They usually are sold out by early December.

 

[PA Ridge Racer]

I only paid $49 bucks per day at Whiteface by purchchasing through Liftopia. Might want to check them out.

 

[gladerider]

got some vouchers via ACE (thanks to billski) and liftopia. worked good for me.

 

[tekweezle]

www.liftopia.com

http://www.workingadvantage.com/