VAIL SUCKS

[Ski2LiveLive2Ski]

it is unfair. and its splitting hairs. did you use your pass 0 days should be the only qualifier. they are very intentionally trying to avoid giving the credit to a portion of their customer base who didn't go skiing, because they didn't make a reservation? if i were in that boat i'd be pissed, especially if i was not making the reservation because i believed to be doing the true and right thing about public health guidance.

If that was the only qualifier I guarantee there would be posts complaining how unfair it was that there was no credit for folks who skied one day.

Wherever you draw a line it feels unfair to folks 1 mm to the other side of that line. But bottom line is they are offering a gift to some here, and that should be applauded. Are they offering this gift in part to make themselves look good? Sure. But even Santa Claus is guilty of that.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

lol. come on. nothing vail does is worthy of applause. they want to keep subscribers year over year. there is no goodness of the heart motivating this decision.

 

[Ski2LiveLive2Ski]

If a public corporation did anything from the goodness of their alleged heart they would rightfully get sued for it by their shareholders.

 

[jaytrem]

lol. come on. nothing vail does is worthy of applause. they want to keep subscribers year over year. there is no goodness of the heart motivating this decision.

Exactly, I'm sure they crunched a bunch of numbers. Give somebody a free pass for 21/22 and there a better chance they'll buy a 22/23.....23/24...and so on. I'll be surprised if they don't do the same thing for the 0 day users and % off for 1 day, 2 day, etc.

 

[Ski2LiveLive2Ski]

Maybe we should retitled this thread
"Vail is running a business"

 

[KustyTheKlown]

ok mr katz.

 

[Ski2LiveLive2Ski]

ok mr katz.

Just a guy exceeding pleased with my family having gotten better bang for my buck as well as a better overall ski experience from my Epic Pass this year than I have ever had before in 4 decades of skiing.

Yes they are serving their customers in a way they hope will make them repeat customers for many years. Good way to run a business.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

except they really arent. they're drawing bullshit lines to exclude a chunk of customers, presumably a pretty large one, from receiving a fair deal. it strikes me as the opposite of good way to run a business to draw those sorts of lines.

i'm glad you enjoy your epic pass. no snark. i'm also glad people like you exist who gladly accept this lowest common denominator product. vail can keep funnelling hordes to places i don't want to go anyway. i'm cool with that. RIP stowe.

 

[cdskier]

If that was the only qualifier I guarantee there would be posts complaining how unfair it was that there was no credit for folks who skied one day.

Wherever you draw a line it feels unfair to folks 1 mm to the other side of that line. But bottom line is they are offering a gift to some here, and that should be applauded. Are they offering this gift in part to make themselves look good? Sure. But even Santa Claus is guilty of that.

Yes, but it is far easier to make a justification on a differentiation on someone that used it 1+ days vs someone that used it 0 days. Trying to justify a differentiation between 2 people that both used it 0 days but one made a priority reservation and the other didn't is rather pointless. Both had 0 usage presumably because they were unable to get to their resorts due to travel restrictions they were trying to abide by. One person simply made a reservation in the hopes that travel restrictions would be lifted while the other took the more conservative approach of not making a reservation until they were sure they would be able to use it. It makes no sense to punish the person that was more conservative in their approach of listening to the rules from the various states.

It absolutely is great that they're giving credit to some people that weren't able to use their pass. However they should be giving it to everyone that couldn't use the pass. Anything other than that is purely greed on their part and shouldn't be considered acceptable...

 

[jaytrem]

i'm glad you enjoy your epic pass. no snark. i'm also glad people like you exist who gladly accept this lowest common denominator product. vail can keep funnelling hordes to places i don't want to go anyway. i'm cool with that. RIP stowe.

That's great as long as the other places survive.

I'm kinda stuck with with Epic (house at Mount Snow forever), but prefer to use my Indy given the opportunity.

 

[Ski2LiveLive2Ski]

That's great as long as the other places survive.

I'm kinda stuck with with Epic (house at Mount Snow forever), but prefer to use my Indy given the opportunity.

Hopefully they will inspire some other places to offer competitive season pass prices

 

[ctdubl07]

Just a guy exceeding pleased with my family having gotten better bang for my buck as well as a better overall ski experience from my Epic Pass this year than I have ever had before in 4 decades of skiing.

Yes they are serving their customers in a way they hope will make them repeat customers for many years. Good way to run a busin

Just a guy exceeding pleased with my family having gotten better bang for my buck as well as a better overall ski experience from my Epic Pass this year than I have ever had before in 4 decades of skiing.

Yes they are serving their customers in a way they hope will make them repeat customers for many years. Good way to run a business.

Same boat. Couldn't be happier with Vail, our experience this year or the fact that they bought Peaks. Everyone has their own needs, perspectives and validation points as consumers. Skied all we needed to this season, where we wanted and it's not over. Heading to Vail in 2 weeks. Awesome to be able to say that with no further pass investment. And I'm glad that 99% of the Folks out there skiing are happy, not on this site and driving Vails model forward.

 

[deadheadskier]

Hopefully they will inspire some other places to offer competitive season pass prices

I'm not sure I'm following you. Almost every where has competitive pass prices. There are certainly independent mountains not on a group deal that seem expensive by comparison. But, compared to day tickets and how passes were priced 5-10 years ago, it's still a really good deal.

I'd rather see higher prices overall and see resorts make a better margin than focusing on volume.

 

[Ski2LiveLive2Ski]

I'm not sure I'm following you. Almost every where has competitive pass prices. There are certainly independent mountains not on a group deal that seem expensive by comparison. But, compared to day tickets and how passes were priced 5-10 years ago, it's still a really good deal.

I'd rather see higher prices overall and see resorts make a better margin than focusing on volume.

I'd like to see pass prices lowered significantly by those places that charge more (or almost as much) for 1 mountain passes as Epic/Ikon charge for multi-mountain passes.

I care about prices of options available to me, not resorts profit margins. I am a fan of entities like Vail / Alterra / ORDA that offer a good deal to customers like me. Pass prices at places like Elk, Plattekill, Windham could benefit from competitive pressure.

 

[deadheadskier]

I'd like to see pass prices lowered significantly by those places that charge more (or almost as much) for 1 mountain passes as Epic/Ikon charge for multi-mountain passes.

I care about prices of options available to me, not resorts profit margins. I am a fan of entities like Vail / Alterra / ORDA that offer a good deal to customers like me. Pass prices at places like Elk, Plattekill, Windham could benefit from competitive pressure.

HARD pass

The problem I see with Epic/Icon is they have made things too inexpensive virtually everywhere. There needs to be greater diversification of product tiers. Make the unlimited products inclusive of premium areas way more expensive and reduce the amount of days that can be used at the premier properties by base passes considerably. It will price some folks out, but that's what the mid and lower tier areas are for. Not everyone can afford to go to a premium priced restaurant like a Morton's Steakhouse every Saturday. Same should be true of a premium ski area.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

seriously. its a race to the fucking bottom. if you cant ski weekdays this model straight up ruins the skiing experience.

 

[Ski2LiveLive2Ski]

They will have to raise prices by at least 3x to make it viable for them to reduce crowds by 50% (cause they will lose the other money folks spend too). Perhaps some places will do it for you. I will not be buying passes for my family at those places as I am not that rich.

 

[dblskifanatic]

Just a guy exceeding pleased with my family having gotten better bang for my buck as well as a better overall ski experience from my Epic Pass this year than I have ever had before in 4 decades of skiing.


Same boat. Couldn't be happier with Vail, our experience this year or the fact that they bought Peaks. Everyone has their own needs, perspectives and validation points as consumers. Skied all we needed to this season, where we wanted and it's not over. Heading to Vail in 2 weeks. Awesome to be able to say that with no further pass investment. And I'm glad that 99% of the Folks out there skiing are happy, not on this site and driving Vails model forward.

Having lived in Colorado for the past 5 years, we were able to ski 50-60 days exception last season due to covid only 28 days. But at $450-550 for Veterans Epic Pass and Veteran Dependent pass for$330 for my son we got the biggest bang for our buck than ever before and we skied Breck Keystone Beaver Creek Vail and A Basin. That is not a bad line up IMO. With A Basin splitting from Epic we still were able to purchase a Military A Basin Pass for less than $200 and that included three days at Monarch. Never had that in the Northeast. Now it is feasible here!

I blows me away that there are pass options besides Ikon and Epic that are more expensive or equal for what we paid that offer much less value.

 

[deadheadskier]

They will have to raise prices by at least 3x to make it viable for them to reduce crowds by 50% (cause they will lose the other money folks spend too). Perhaps some places will do it for you. I will not be buying passes for my family at those places as I am not that rich.

I'd be fine with $1500 as the unlimited price for a place like Stowe and then raising the price significantly on the base pass for five days access or reducing access down to 2-3 days at the same price currently being offered. I'd like to see the price go up for access to Wildcat too, but that's unlikely.

Earlier in my career I didn't ski Stowe for about ten years because I couldn't afford it. It sucked because I lived in Stowe for many years and got a cheap industry or college pass. When making a lower income I bought passes to places like Ragged and then hunted for deals at more Premium mountains.

Now that I've worked my ass off and I am in position to pay for a more premium product, it's been cheapened. I'm sure this is the same way people feel about Alta, Snowbird and Jackson on Ikon.

 

[kendo]

This just in.
Cliff notes version...
we're expanding our off shore call centers;
we expect to be able to fully staff our resorts and lifts next year with foreign labor;
we want your continued love and money!

​

​

Dear xxxx, On March 23, we will be releasing our 2021/22 season passes with some exciting changes we believe you will very much appreciate. But before we look forward, I want to address the challenges we faced during this incredibly difficult season and share our plans to grow from these experiences. First, a follow up on our call center wait times. We are committed to a multi-year transformation to ensure we provide you the information you need, when you need it, and how you want to receive it. As a first step, we have spent the last few months overhauling the technical systems behind our guest service operations and are in the process of dramatically scaling the number of representatives available to provide you support. While we are still putting the fully expanded team into place, I’m pleased to share that we have doubled our staff of customer service representatives since December and plan to quadruple our staff by May. We will also be rolling out a much more robust chat offering. Our goal is to ensure that we can quickly answer your calls and messages and get you the information you need. While there may still be moments with longer hold times in the short term, I am confident you will see continuous improvement over the next couple of months and well before next season. Second, an update on our pass holder reservation system. We designed the system to help safely manage on-mountain capacity during this pandemic. While we do not know exactly how COVID-19 will impact our industry next winter, we are not planning to have a reservation system next season. For anyone worried that the absence of a reservation system will lead to longer lift lines, we have extensive learnings from this season around lift loading efficiencies and are implementing new strategies to materially reduce wait times. And of course, we will also benefit from new lifts at Breckenridge, Keystone, Beaver Creek, Crested Butte and Okemo. Our goal this season was to safely open – and stay open – all winter long as we worked to navigate the unique challenges of operating our resorts during this unprecedented pandemic. Because of your loyalty as a pass holder, our supportive communities and our hard-working employees, we will achieve that goal together. In fact, we are pleased to provide our guests with the opportunity to enjoy skiing and riding well into the spring as we recently announced extended operations at nearly a dozen of our resorts. Amidst the hardships of this last year, we have come away with many lessons learned, a heightened sense of the importance of recreating on our mountains, and a renewed commitment to live up to our mission of providing you an Experience of a Lifetime. I am sincerely grateful for your patience and understanding, and I look forward to sharing our big news with you when passes drop on March 23.​

Wishing you all the very best, Rob Katz CEO of Vail Resorts​