Praises for the EPIC pass reservation system

[thebigo]

My understanding is that reservations are not required for kids on program day; reservations are never required for kids under five.

I do not know you, other than reading your sentagraphs on the various forums, but I suspect your kids are teenagers and you are on mountain. We will be in Glen about ten minutes to wildcat and attitash. My currently seven year old daughter is turning eight in a few weeks and signed up for freestyle competition. She had a blast last year in freestyle, talked it about all summer and I could not say no. I would have no problem sending my kids off with coaches and hanging around the condo all day if we were on mountain and she was older. At her age and our distance to the mountain, I am not comfortable leaving her there. With lodges off limits, my only option is to idle the car in the parking lot if I can not get a reservation.

I understand this is a first word problem and there are people with far more severe pandemic related issues. Only point is that some sort of workaround would have been appreciated and given the situation, I would have been willing to pay for it.

Actually with respect to kids seasonal programs, for Mount Snow at least, any kid that signs up for a seasonal program will automatically have their EPIC active on the days that the program is scheduled to meet, without having to make any reservations for that day. So in theory, since I just have 1 of my 2 kids racing for Mount Snow this year (and the way the program is currently set it be, it will just be training at Mount Snow with the same group of 4 other kids in the same age cohort and the same coach each time, and then having club races at Mount Snow with currently no races planned until March at the earliest possible time with other mountains) there could be a day where within my family, just my daughter gets to ski, if myself, my wife and my son get blocked out of a week of reservation...

Definitely wish they had done something for the passholders who are property owners near the mountain, who spend the vast majority of their time just skiing that 1 mountain. Sincerely hope that's not a tweak they'll have to make for the '21-'22 season!!!!!

 

[abc]

My guess is that lots of people are waiting it out right now to see how mountains are operating before booking a big trip

That maybe the case for non-passholders. For passholders, there's no reason NOT to reserve the "planned" holidays using their priority days. Especially if their planned holiday are Christmas or Presidents week.

But I get your point that once the window opens for day ticket buyers, it may get a flood of them booking Christmas and President's week. So passholders better hang on to their holiday booking.

but that once things seem okay, there will be a flood of bookings and those weekends will fill up.

That's quite possible. We'll see

 

[JimG.]

Amazing to see everyone suddenly waking up to the fact that a megapass is NOT a season pass. Assigning only 7 priority days to a skier who stays at one mountain because of seasonal programs or second home ownership is nothing but a massive kick in the balls.

 

[njdiver85]

Amazing to see everyone suddenly waking up to the fact that a megapass is NOT a season pass. Assigning only 7 priority days to a skier who stays at one mountain because of seasonal programs or second home ownership is nothing but a massive kick in the balls.

This!!!!

 

[cdskier]

Amazing to see everyone suddenly waking up to the fact that a megapass is NOT a season pass. Assigning only 7 priority days to a skier who stays at one mountain because of seasonal programs or second home ownership is nothing but a massive kick in the balls.

This isn't a "megapass" issue. Killington is using a very similar system for parking reservations even for people that have simply a traditional Killington season pass.

 

[abc]

Amazing to see everyone suddenly waking up to the fact that a megapass is NOT a season pass. Assigning only 7 priority days to a skier who stays at one mountain because of seasonal programs or second home ownership is nothing but a massive kick in the balls.

This isn't a "megapass" issue. Killington is using a very similar system for parking reservations even for people that have simply a traditional Killington season pass.

It's simply a SEASON PASS issue! For all the mountains that uses capacity limit, that is.

At least Vail allows all of their pass purchasers who bought before the announcement of the reservation requirement to request a full refund.

Whether people who bought their pass had a full comprehension of the implication of capacity limit or not is a different matter.

 

[JimG.]

This isn't a "megapass" issue. Killington is using a very similar system for parking reservations even for people that have simply a traditional Killington season pass.

It certainly is a megapass issue.

K has to have a parking system because of all the IKON passes and the traditional season passholder takes the hit because of that.

 

[JimG.]

It's simply a SEASON PASS issue! For all the mountains that uses capacity limit, that is.

At least Vail allows all of their pass purchasers who bought before the announcement of the reservation requirement to request a full refund.

Whether people who bought their pass had a full comprehension of the implication of capacity limit or not is a different matter.

Killington will issue a full refund for any pass product before 11/20...I know because they had to give me my money back.

And of course the issue is that buyers were unaware of what was going to happen. But that's a VT issue, not a season pass issue.

After this I guarantee you will see mountains that move to cater to the traditional season pass model. I feel bad for second homeowners who got stuck because their mountain turned megapass.

 

[abc]

But that's a VT issue, not a season pass issue.

After this I guarantee you will see mountains that move to cater to the traditional season pass model. I feel bad for second homeowners who got stuck because their mountain turned megapass.

You mean second home owners in VT?

Second home owner in the Cats will have no problem, whether they have a mega pass or not.

 

[JimG.]

You mean second home owners in VT?

Second home owner in the Cats will have no problem, whether they have a mega pass or not.

??

I mean any second homeowners who live on a megapass mountain. But VT is the extreme example.

And I'm sure second homeowners at Hunter do not feel there is no problem because they are in the Cats.

 

[cdskier]

It certainly is a megapass issue.

K has to have a parking system because of all the IKON passes and the traditional season passholder takes the hit because of that.

If it was a megapass issue, then why are many other Ikon resorts not requiring reservations? Additionally, K could have easily chosen to require reservations only for Ikon holders (as places like JH or Abasin have done) if they thought Ikon was the reason they had to implement a parking reservation system in the first place. Instead they made it for everyone including plain old K pass-holders.

Personally I don't agree with the way Epic (or K) are handling this. I understand the need to limit capacity, but I have issues with the "7 priority day" number they chose. Although perhaps we'll end up finding out in the end that no one has any issues getting reservations for the days they want to ski anyway (other than the inconvenience of having to use the reservation systems). Then again we're still in the middle of a global pandemic, so us whining about potential limits on how many skiing days we can reserve is really a minor issue in the grand scheme of things...

 

[cdskier]

I feel bad for second homeowners who got stuck because their mountain turned megapass.

I'm a second homeowner on a mountain that turned megapass. I have no issues so far with how they're handling things and don't feel stuck at all by Alterra's decisions.

I have a much larger issue with the way VT in general is handling things. VT's decisions are impacting second homeowners whether they are on a megapass mountain or not...

 

[abc]

Although perhaps we'll end up finding out in the end that no one has any issues getting reservations for the days they want to ski anyway (other than the inconvenience of having to use the reservation systems).

I think that's just wishful thinking from the Vail CEO.

Weekends in some of the destination mountains were so crazy there's no way everyone can get in under the capacity cap. Even with filled chairs with singles line etc, the liftline can be as long as 1/2hr sometimes! No way they can let that same number of people "reserved".

As someone reported, Kaystone and Breck filled out for the opening weekend. We'll see how fast weekends fill in the northeast.

For me, after receiving an email from Vail to extend my time to buy a pass with last season's credit, I haven't heard back from them to actually purchase. I've been blasting them with e-mail follow-ups (their customer service phone number doesn't even allow me to be put on hold!)

Not that I'm hell-bent to buy an Epic pass. Given the murky situation, I'm more and more inclined to skip this season altogether.

 

[thebigo]

The optics of that would have been horrific.

I disagree, it all depends on how you present it, one option is:

Full Epic Pass holders only, select a home mountain and are afforded an additional 14 priority days at their home mountain. The extra days apply to full Epic only, not the local, northeast or any of the other discount passes. This approach drives revenue and builds loyalty.

 

[gittist]

I disagree, it all depends on how you present it, one option is:

Full Epic Pass holders only, select a home mountain and are afforded an additional 14 priority days at their home mountain. The extra days apply to full Epic only, not the local, northeast or any of the other discount passes. This approach drives revenue and builds loyalty.

Where is the verbiage for the additional 14 days? I don't remember seeing that in any of my emails or on the website.

As near as I can tell, season pass holders are only guaranteed 7 days. As I understand it if day ticket people buy all of the capacity a month out, I can't make a 'week of' reservation unless Vail holds some capacity back for us. I've yet to see any indication that they plan on that.

 

[cdskier]

Where is the verbiage for the additional 14 days? I don't remember seeing that in any of my emails or on the website.

That was just a suggestion/idea from thebigo on something they could have done.

I wonder what the breakdown is with Epic of people that have what they consider a "home" resort and ski mainly there vs people that ski different resorts all the time and aren't loyal to any one particular resort (i.e. people that use it like a traditional season pass vs people that use it as a "megapass").

 

[gittist]

That was just a suggestion/idea from thebigo on something they could have done.

I wonder what the breakdown is with Epic of people that have what they consider a "home" resort and ski mainly there vs people that ski different resorts all the time and aren't loyal to any one particular resort (i.e. people that use it like a traditional season pass vs people that use it as a "megapass").

Thank you for replying to the 'extra 14 day' question.

I'm one of those that ski different areas, especially since there are 5 Epic areas here in PA that I can day trip to. Two of them are a little far but still possible. We've already cancelled our Vermont trips and didn't book anything with the two ski clubs we belong to.

 

[JimG.]

If it was a megapass issue, then why are many other Ikon resorts not requiring reservations? Additionally, K could have easily chosen to require reservations only for Ikon holders (as places like JH or Abasin have done) if they thought Ikon was the reason they had to implement a parking reservation system in the first place. Instead they made it for everyone including plain old K pass-holders.

Personally I don't agree with the way Epic (or K) are handling this. I understand the need to limit capacity, but I have issues with the "7 priority day" number they chose. Although perhaps we'll end up finding out in the end that no one has any issues getting reservations for the days they want to ski anyway (other than the inconvenience of having to use the reservation systems). Then again we're still in the middle of a global pandemic, so us whining about potential limits on how many skiing days we can reserve is really a minor issue in the grand scheme of things...

As I often find when I debate with you we generally speaking agree.

But I do think the the potential high numbers of skiers/reservations due to the cheap multi mountain passes has definitely influenced the decision making.

 

[snoseek]

So if I reserve some days for the upcoming season and cancel my pass before using those days up due to increasing Covid and just not feeling comfy with operations do i get a refund. I have a backup pass. I want to start reserving a few days and leave a few for when the 2 week forecast is looking good. I could start early on other pass and see how things go?

 

[njdiver85]

Looks like the VT restrictions are causing many to bail on Mt Snow for the Thanksgiving weekend. All days currently back up as available.