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Cost of season passes

eng_ch

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I notice a lot of Divas on your side of the pond have season passes (and even for 2 mountains :eek: ) but they are really too expensive for us. Partly owing to the number of break-even days at any one place (and we don't ski in teh same place all the time) and partly in terms of resort size:cost ratio.

For instance, here in CH typically you need to ski a resort for 14-15 days a season to break even buying a season pass. Our nearest mountain has just 40 km of pistes yet charges CHF 670* for a season pass! Much better value is Flims Laax (220 km), which charges CHF 950 for a season pass that also covers Klosters/Davos and Lenzerheide - but Flims is an hour and a quarter, and the others are two hours away which means planning to go (and get to bed in time to get up) and arranging for dog sitting etc. Plus CHF 950 x 2 is a lot of money. Add to that that we usually do at least 2 weeks in France each season (if we have a week free we might as well go somewhere that is beyond weekend distance).

Season passes in the large French resorts are even more expensive!

So how much do you pay for your season passes and how many days is the break-even point?

*$1 = CHF 1.25 (roughly)
 

SnowHot

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
eng_ch said:
So how much do you pay for your season passes and how many days is the break-even point?

*$1 = CHF 1.25 (roughly)

That is a great question!
I always have a season pass for Crystal Mountian, Michigan.
They have two special sales a year.
One in the spring:
If you "fill a quad" Sign up 4 people for season passes by April 1st for the following season, it costs $199 USD.
Their Regular Ski passes cost an average of $40

That means that skiing 5 times will break even.

The second Special sale is in the fall:
If you "fill a quad" sign up 4 people for season passes by October 1st, it costs $239 USD, 6 ski days would be the break even point.

On occasion, we get a season pass at Caberfae Peaks They run occasional deals with other promotions that give you a chance to get a season pass for 100 USD. Again with the day ticket pass at an average of $30, the break even point is just over 3 ski days.


My nephew goes to college nearly 1000 miles away from home(12 hr drive) but he still gets in on the quad passes with the family at Crystal Mountain, because he's mostly home during Christmas when the regular day tickets are $50. A $199 season pass pays for itself with him just during a three week trip home;)

Eng_ch,
What does the average season pass cost over there?
 

eng_ch

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
No such thing as "average" really but quite a few of the Swiss individual resorts want CHF 650ish or so for a season pass.

OK, let me convert those prices for you...

Hoch-Ybrig (our local with 40km of pistes = 10 runs tops) = $536 ish
Day tickets CHF 48 ($39) (38 after 12pm)
Piste map:
https://ski.intermaps.ch/hoch-ybrig/flash/index.swf (resort site is in German only)

Flims-Laax (incl Davos/Klosters & Lenzerheide) with lots of runs = $ 680 is you buy before the end of April for the following season, $760 now until end Nov, and $840 thereafter
Day ticket for Flims/Laax CHF 63 ($50) (53 after 12pm)
FYI:
https://www.laax.com/en/


3 valleys (vast - 600 km of pistes) = EUR 935 ($1150ish?)
Day tickets EUR 43 ($52ish?) (34.50 after noon)
For Courchevel and the 3 Valleys:
https://www.courchevel.com/index2.php?lang=en

St Anton EUR 650 ($780 ish?)
Day tickets EUR 40.50 ($48ish?) (31 after noon)
https://www.stantonamarlberg.com/

So on average, getting on for 15 days to break even :( And hardly any deals - only the occasional minor early purchase reduction
 

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
Whew! It's pricey over there (in Europe)!

I have a mid-week season pass at Okemo in Vermont, which I can use to ski Monday through Friday -- no weekends or holidays -- which is fine with me because I don't like to ski when it's crowded. The pass is also good at Stratton, another resort here in Vermont, as well as Sunapee, a small ski area in New Hampshire. I could also get a discount at Crested Butte in Colorado, if I ever made it out there.

I can't remember the exact cost I paid for it, but suffice it to say it was about $290. A regular mid-day lift ticket is $66. So I'd only have to ski less than 5 days to break even. Last year I used the pass 40 times, which brought my cost down to $7.25 per day. Not bad. In fact, my husband says (jokingly) that he doesn't even like to ski -- he's just too cheap not to! In fact, our goal each season is to get our costs down to less than $10. per day. It's always fun to succeed!
 

eng_ch

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
OK, to be fair Hoch-Ybrig does do a weekday only season pass which is a couple of hundred francs cheaper, but I need to be around in the office most weekdays :(

That was an interesting exercise, though, as it's made me realise that Flims/Laax, whilst not being cheap, is actually pretty good value for money
 

SnowHot

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
The passes I'm referencing are unlimited. That is very nice
 

chaletlaforet

Certified Ski Diva
Those are some good deals SnowHot!
I was really impressed when I was in the US by how reasonable the season passes are, when you buy early. I agree with eng_ch - Europe really lags behind on this (and on lift line control!:D)

Flims-Laax is a good deal, I think - I'm quite surprised by how reasonable that is.

Chamonix has discounted passes for early buyers by 30% - the promotion just finished. They have had a couple of bad years recently so this seems to be a way of getting people back - it will be interesting to see how it goes, and if it encourages other resorts....

We like to go mountain biking, climbing and hiking in summer so we just lashed out on full year passes for the first time (woohoo!)

Full price for this is (gulp) $1580 but as we now are the proud possessors of resident's cards, we get 50% off, plus there is a (completely unpublicised) couple's discount, which brought them down to $670, which I thought was pretty good for unlimited use of the entire valley including the Aiguille Du Midi, plus a few bonus days in other resorts.

A Winter pass is normally $1250.

Normally a day pass is about $50, and the Aiguille Du Midi is that for just one trip, so that makes the break even point about 13/14 days - comparable to yours in Switzerland, but nowhere near the good American deals - and that's with a big discount - full price, it would be 25 days to break even for a winter pass :/

I wonder why Europe is so much more? Interesting..
 

eng_ch

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
A lot of places here do discounts if you live in the community - but we're not close enough for that. And Flims (where we're most likely to buy if we ever do) doesn't do them at all. The more I think about the Flims deal, the better value it seems but we're just not going to get 15 days down there this season - 10 maybe. Maybe next year
 

Lilgeorg

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Like THE DIVA I have a mid week pass at Okemo that I bought last Spring for $289. I also have a Silver pass at Killington, Vt. that includes 6 American Company Ski Resorts... Killington, Sunday River, Mt. Snow, Attitash, ?? and Pico that I bought last Spring for $389. this pass is good for anytime but 10 black out days over busy holidays. But because I am a returning passholder they give me 2 of the blackout days back. B etween the 2 areas we skied 52 days. That makes the average day around $13. Killington's daily rate is around $70 with weekends at $75+. So if I only ski 10 days between the 2 passes, I break even. I live 30 minutes from the 2 resorts. I am retired, so it makes sense for me. If we didn't get house guests who like to ski Killington on the weekends, we would probably only keep the Okemo pass.

I am really glad to get these deals.
 

Jilly

Moderator
Staff member
OMG - I paid $1000.00 Cdn for a season's pass at Tremblant. And that's at the discount time and as a couple. They do have a number of other deals. Hookie pass - weekdays only in under $400.00. 2 years ago I bought the T-66 pass. They - Tremblant - determine 66 days of the season that you can ski on the pass. Now most of them are december and april. No Saturdays, and hardly any time in Feb or March. But you also get a BANG card with it that entitles you to discounted passes on the days that the T-66 is not good. OK - Saturday you get a 5% discount. Regular lift is 64.50 and 71.50 during Christmas. The T-66 is under $200.00, so not bad deal if you can pick and choose your days. You also have to live in certain postal codes to get the cards. The break even point for my season pass is 19 days. That's why I like to get in 50 days if I can.
 

trouble

Certified Ski Diva
A season pass for 5 mountains in Colorado is $369 if you buy it early enough. This gets you unlimited days at Breckenridge, Keystone, and Arapahoe Basin, and 10 days at Vail and Beaver Creek. The affordability of this pass is a relatively new occurrence; it wasn't until 6 or 7 years ago (or so) that the cost was brought down.

A season pass for Copper mountain is $229 which I think is a steal.

As for a break-even point, using ticket window prices it is 5-6 days for the 5-mountain pass and 4 days for Copper, using peak season cost. But nobody pays window prices (They SHOULDN'T, anyway!!!!) so I'd say a reasonable break even point is about 9 days and 7 days, respectively.
 

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