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VAIL SUCKS
- Thread starter thebigo
- Start date
Exactly.
Alterra and Vail want to hire you for their marketing departments.
abc
Well-known member
Did anyone notice the price reduction is for everyone, not just for previous passholder renewing?
If you wonder how much Vail care about its customers, you have your answers right there.
It's pretty simple. Vail wants to eat Alterra's lunch! By offering a 20% lower price for EVERYONE, it wants to turn Ikon passholders into Epic holders. As for the side effect of over-crowding? They couldn't care less.
slatham
Well-known member
All those skiers in line at Mt Snow are going to go out West now that Covid will be dealt with by next winter. Western resorts don't have any issues with lines 
SnowRock
Active member
Don't love Vail or Epic, but as a longtime reader before joining this forum, it is somewhat hilarious to see people complaining about pass prices being low when for years so many of the posts on this forum were complaining about pass prices being high or looking for ways to find discounts, BOGOs, etc. The Stowe complaining in particular is funny as I remember every year multiple posters criticizing AIG for their prices, trying to be a premium resort with all the "Steuax" stuff .. now we want it to go back to that model?
Seems like some want to go back to the days of super high single mountain season pass prices with quirky ways to find discounts, so only those in the know can ski for cheap and weekend crowds are lessened. Things like the Vermont Travel Club Card, ski club/council days, and early days of the Mountain Collective were great for that sort of stuff.... but not sure we will be going back to that.
I also don't know how we can make assumptions about lift lines next year based on this year. This year we have a ton of companies still operating under total WFH status... especially in NY and Boston. Not to mention uphill capacity being limited by 50% or more depending upon the type of lift.
Seems like some want to go back to the days of super high single mountain season pass prices with quirky ways to find discounts, so only those in the know can ski for cheap and weekend crowds are lessened. Things like the Vermont Travel Club Card, ski club/council days, and early days of the Mountain Collective were great for that sort of stuff.... but not sure we will be going back to that.
I also don't know how we can make assumptions about lift lines next year based on this year. This year we have a ton of companies still operating under total WFH status... especially in NY and Boston. Not to mention uphill capacity being limited by 50% or more depending upon the type of lift.
It's not one way or the other. A happy medium can be achieved.
slatham
Well-known member
Katz isn't going give a shit about what we think, but I'll bet he's paying attention to the stock dropping and analysts being surprised by move.
sugarbushskier
Member
Vail is strategizing that by lowering pass prices and therefore increasing the number of daily visitors that ancillary revenue producing departments (F&B, Lodging, Rentals, Lessons) will more than offset their 20% discounting of pass prices.
These are higher margin areas I suspect.
These are higher margin areas I suspect.
Exactly. Stowe's pass prices at one point were close to 2K if I remember correctly. That WAS overpriced. But <$800 now is definitely under-priced. There's a big gap between those 2 numbers. They went from 1 extreme to the other...
SnowRock
Active member
So have we ever had the happy medium then? And who's medium are we judging it by? For some, these multi-pass products work out well. For others they want their home mountain ski-on on Saturdays but a price they deem reasonable. Its hard.
I am a weekend warrior mostly (except for this year) so believe me, don't love the idea of adding more crowds to my experience, but there are lots of options now. With the Epic prices there are combinations where you could throw in an Indy pass or an IKON pass, or the MC and be close or even below where you were for some single mountain passes, no?
I am a weekend warrior mostly (except for this year) so believe me, don't love the idea of adding more crowds to my experience, but there are lots of options now. With the Epic prices there are combinations where you could throw in an Indy pass or an IKON pass, or the MC and be close or even below where you were for some single mountain passes, no?
Yes, that is true. I remember those days. Just shows how we have all changed and become those old men who don't want kids on our lawns.
It just shows that in almost 20 years we have seen expensive passes, ASC cheapo passes, moderately priced passes that have crept up in price, and now back to bargain basement.
skef
Active member
[There are a few sort-of-related threads I could have posted this on, but this one has the snappy subject line, so...]
Per this post on snowbrains, it appears that some MA/NY/etc. passholders are getting credit for passes they could not use in VT due to travel restrictions. Has anyone here seen action on that?
Reading between the lines a bit, the "Epic coverage" stuff on epicpass.com seems to indicate that if one hadn't requested coverage before December 14, one is SOL. I foolishly hadn't made any such request because their rules, at the time, didn't account for the travel restrictions. Do I have any hope now? If so, what should I do?
I've got a 4-day Epic Day pass that was 80% funded from an unsued-thanks-to-COVID 2019-2020 4-day pass... Hoping to realizing some skiing off of it one of these years.
Per this post on snowbrains, it appears that some MA/NY/etc. passholders are getting credit for passes they could not use in VT due to travel restrictions. Has anyone here seen action on that?
Reading between the lines a bit, the "Epic coverage" stuff on epicpass.com seems to indicate that if one hadn't requested coverage before December 14, one is SOL. I foolishly hadn't made any such request because their rules, at the time, didn't account for the travel restrictions. Do I have any hope now? If so, what should I do?
I've got a 4-day Epic Day pass that was 80% funded from an unsued-thanks-to-COVID 2019-2020 4-day pass... Hoping to realizing some skiing off of it one of these years.
As DHS said, yes. I would look to pass prices in the 2008-2013 timeframe or so. $900-1,000 got you a season pass to most decent areas. Other places had lower pricepoint options. Sugarbush, for example, had a pass option (Mount Ellen) for $499, another for $719 or so, and one at $950. What did not exist were multimountain discount passes.
Yeah, but what is the point of doing that? I think that the perspective that a lot of us are operating with is the old model of "one pass, one mountain." So maybe we just aren't seeing your POV of doing multiple mountains in a season. If you want to do that, then I guess you could do an Epic and MC option.
Absolutely...And I much prefer a renewal discount model like Ikon rather than a "discount for everyone" model like Epic. At least the renewal discount model makes me feel like the company values and wants to reward my loyalty (whether that is actually true or not is another topic). To me the "everyone gets a discount" model is a slap in the face to loyal passholders.
SnowRock
Active member
Yeah I think that's the fundamental difference... those who are locked into a home mountain and then those that aren't that like the multi-mountain flexibility. I get all the reasons this sucks if you are worried about your home mountain getting more crowded. And I am probably more on that side, being critical of this move, especially for it being open to everyone and not a renewal discount. Was just pointing out that 1K priced passes got a lot of groans for a long time on here.
You are right that $1,000 passes were once deemed expensive. But, as things go, it seemed that they moved from the $750-800 range up to $1,000 as the economy rebounded.
Loyalty. That is the the argument that a lot of local passholders raise in response to their home resort joining Ikon or Epic. As in, "I'm loyal to you, why can't you be loyal to me?" I don't think that loyalty counts for much anymore. Both Alterra and Vail are competing with one another. Most big resorts have taken sides. The sheer volume of passes sold and the macro economics is more important to these companies than loyalty it seems. Maybe I am wrong.
and/or the growth in membership/pass sales, will charge the stock price whether gross revenue increases or not.
dblskifanatic
Active member
- Joined
- May 24, 2019
- Messages
- 767
- Points
- 43
I think there will be many people that will remain loyal to Ikon regionally mostly because they may prefer the resorts over Epic. There will be many that cannot resist the lower price point and will switch. I talked to a friend of mine that works at Breck and this is all about getting their pass holder numbers back up. I think this discount for everyone was a great move because lots of people abandoned their passes due to the uncertainty of the season to come. So they rebuild their pass sales and next year things will go back to normal. - very smart.
