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EPIC FOR EVERYONE Pass Launched

marzNC

Angel Diva
The push is on to encourage people to commit to an Epic pass. Got an email today from Stowe about the Sept. 2 deadline. Focus was on Epic Local for $699. Wonder which resorts are promoted for elists of resorts in Utah, Colorado, or California.

Screen Shot 2019-08-15 at 5.28.32 PM.png
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
For those who think about ski club trips to a Vail resort, @VickiK found a pretty interesting article about the impact of the new Epic Day Pass. It's geared towards tour operators.

Ski clubs and the new Epic Day Passes - potential quirks to keep in mind - March 2019
@VickiK : what did your ski club end up doing for trips to VR resorts?

I've seen discounts of $50-100 for ski club trips to Ikon locations.

I'm trying to understand Epic passes better for my BIL who lives in the midwest. Now that he semi-retired, he's got more time for ski trips that last more then 4 days.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
When I have the patience to read them, the FAQs for Epic passes seemed to be pretty good. Found a summary of the Senior options at the very bottom, but it doesn't include Tahoe Value, Kirkwood only, Afton Alps only, or Mt. Brighton only. Those show up under the menu Specialty, but the Colorado and W-B senior options don't. Guess "simple and straightforward" was an idea from a while back. :smile:

Screen Shot 2019-08-18 at 3.01.30 PM.png

Ski buddy Bill is already over 65. I've got a few years to go. Thinking ahead about which Epic option might make the most sense for exploring Colorado resorts I haven't been to during one season. Of course, the options or age cut-off could well change in a year or two.
 

VTsnowflower

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I believe there's also a grandfathered-in (no pun intended!) mid-week senior pass at Okemo. But you have to call to find out about it. From their website:
"Looking for additional Season Pass options for Okemo, including Mid-week Okemo/Sunapee passes, the Northeast College Pass, Senior, Super Senior Okemo/Sunapee passes? Please call (802)228-1600 or come to the Resort Services desk at The Clock Tower Base Lodge or Jackson Gore Base Lodge to purchase today!"
 

Abbi

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I believe there's also a grandfathered-in (no pun intended!) mid-week senior pass at Okemo. But you have to call to find out about it. From their website:
"Looking for additional Season Pass options for Okemo, including Mid-week Okemo/Sunapee passes, the Northeast College Pass, Senior, Super Senior Okemo/Sunapee passes? Please call (802)228-1600 or come to the Resort Services desk at The Clock Tower Base Lodge or Jackson Gore Base Lodge to purchase today!"

True. Cheered up a lot of Okemo regulars when it became known! Just no idea if they will cut that off at some point in the fall. So far it’s there.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
I believe there's also a grandfathered-in (no pun intended!) mid-week senior pass at Okemo. But you have to call to find out about it. From their website:
"Looking for additional Season Pass options for Okemo, including Mid-week Okemo/Sunapee passes, the Northeast College Pass, Senior, Super Senior Okemo/Sunapee passes? Please call (802)228-1600 or come to the Resort Services desk at The Clock Tower Base Lodge or Jackson Gore Base Lodge to purchase today!"
Very interesting! Good to know Okemo and Sunapee still have mid-week and senior options.

Have never looked at the individual VR resort websites for season pass info. The differences are noticeable. Okemo, Sunapee, and Crested Butte all have a little note at the bottom with a local phone number to call for info about Additional Options. Only the Okemo webpage actually mentions the possibilities.

The order of presentation of the Epic pass options are quite different for Kirkwood and Northstar. The top two for Kirkwood are Tahoe Local and Tahoe Value. The first two for Northstar are Full Epic or Epic Local. Scrolling down gets to other Epic options. Epic Day shows up for Northstar but not Kirkwood. Makes sense since Northstar is a destination resort popular with families for a ski vacation based on slopeside lodging while Kirkwood is more of a local's ski area. The style of the webpages are the same, but clearly the software was designed for customization for individual resort websites instead of just forcing everyone to purchase from the Epic pass website.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
The one day option is overpriced--depending on what resort you may want to use it at of course. For example, if you are like me and typically ski one day each season at Mt Sunapee, you would be losing money to buy this advance purchase one day pass when you could still just go on the mountain website the night before you want to ski there and find a better price.
Why pay $106 when you could pay $90 or less.
If you ski exclusively at Epic resorts and get the full season passes then it's a good deal--- the 1-4 day passes you really need to get your calculator out and see if they make sense--since they base the advertised savings off the window rate--and like I say you can still prepurchase the night before you want to go on the website and save off the window rate and then you have the benefit of not being locked in.
Now that websites are set up for the 2019-20 season, I took a look at the online advanced ticket pricing for Okemo, Sunapee, and Stowe. All three are using the same software. The maximum discount is 25% of the window rate for a given date or date range. Multi-day ticket options include: 2 of 3, 3 of 5, 4 of 6, 5 of 8, 6 of 9, up to 7 of 10 days. The marketing phrase for the Epic Day Pass is "up to 50%" off the window rate but that's only if getting 7 days.

Suppose someone was thinking of spending two non-holiday weekends at Stowe. If they were willing to commit to the dates well in advance, buying two 2-day tickets for non-holiday January weekends would be $186+186 = $372. A 4-day Epic Day Pass without holidays is currently $399 and was $388 before Sept. 2, 2019. The advantage of paying a little more early on for an Epic Day Pass is the flexibility of using the 4 days any non-holiday period at any of the three VR resorts in the northeast during the season. Or potentially flying out west for a weekend trip to a VR resort.

Haven't looked at online advanced ticket prices for the three midwest locations in MI, MN, WI but would expect something similar.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Never noticed that the VR resorts in Colorado (not Crested Butte), Tahoe, and Utah (Park City) have a free loyalty program called PEAKS Rewards. Reminds me of what Boyne Resorts does. Points are added to an account a few weeks afterwards, so much be used during another trip. Points are good for three years.

Screen Shot 2019-09-07 at 3.54.45 PM.png
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Never noticed that the VR resorts in Colorado (not Crested Butte), Tahoe, and Utah (Park City) have a free loyalty program called PEAKS Rewards.
I think I may have found an obsolete webpage (Post #68). PEAKS existed in 2010 when EpicMix was introduced. But there isn't a link on snow dot com any more. Don't remember what I was looking for that brought up the webpage.

What does exist in 2019 are Epic Pass Clubs by region with special discounts. For example, midwest Epic passholders can get discounts at selected ski shops.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Vail Resorts closed the deal to take over all 17 locations of Peak Resorts. For details about the options for people who bought a Peak pass for 2019-20, there is a detailed FAQ on the Epic website.

https://www.epicpass.com/info/peak-resorts-faq.aspx

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...etropolitan-areas-to-portfolio-300924366.html
"BROOMFIELD, Colo., Sept. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Vail Resorts, Inc. (NYSE: MTN) today announced that the Company has closed on its acquisition of Peak Resorts, Inc. (NASDAQ: SKIS) for a purchase price of $11.00 per share. With this acquisition, Vail Resorts has added 17 U.S. ski areas to its network of world-class resorts, bringing its total number of owned and operated resorts to 37 worldwide.

The 17 new resorts are located in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, near major metropolitan areas including New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Columbus, St. Louis, Kansas City and Louisville.
. . ."
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Interesting comparison for Telluride over New Year's. Saw that a husband on another forum who only takes one ski vacation a year with friends, with non-skiing wives, found that for 5 ski tickets it's $570. That's the Epic Day Pass price for 5 days with holiday access. Going directly to the Telluride website, a 5-day ticket is $650 (8% discount) starting on 12/21/19 and thru the rest of the season.

A 4-day Telluride ticket is $521 during the season. A 4-day Epic Day Pass without holiday access is $399. Have to get a minimum of 4 days in order to have access to Telluride with a Day Pass.

Can see why being a partner on Epic would bring new people to Telluride. Apparently the couples who are heading to Telluride for the first time have been going to Deer Valley for New Year's in the past.
 

VickiK

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I need to upload my photo for the Epic Pass.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Is it really this expensive now??
When was the last time you bought a day ticket at a destination resort out west?

The big news a few years ago was when day tickets were reaching $200. That's why the Epic Day Pass prices being around $100 is considered a good deal for people who are intent on skiing at a VR resort for less than 8 days. If they can get to a VR resort for 7+ days, then Epic Local is a better deal. For those who live in the midwest, there are now several ski hills on Epic within day trip distance of major cities. Doesn't take many local ski days to get your money's worth from Epic Local.
 

SierraLuLu

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
When was the last time you bought a day ticket at a destination resort out west?

2 years ago I skied most of the big resorts in California for less than $120/day (in the case of Mammoth I had to use 2 for 1 discounts which didn’t have the same flexibility as the epic day pass, but were usually about $75 day). I’ve never been skiing in Colorado or Canada, but at those prices I think I’ll stick it out with a season pass from now on.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
I’ve never been skiing in Colorado or Canada, but at those prices I think I’ll stick it out with a season pass from now on.
The reason those of us who live far away from destination resorts like Mammoth or Squaw/Alpine like the Epic or Ikon multi-resort passes is that it makes the cost of lift tickets for a trip out west reasonable. Trips involving flights are usually planned months in advance. The total cost includes plane fare, lodging, and local transportation. Very different situation than for someone who lives within a day's drive of a big mountain.

Note that a premium season pass at Mammoth gets 50% discounts on day tickets at MCP locations, which are well known independent destination resorts like Jackson Hole or Alta.

While the destination resorts get lots of press and are better known, there are still plenty of other places to ski that don't charge $150+ for a day ticket. Whether or not it's worth the travel time and cost . . . everyone's situation and interest is different.

For ideas of the opposite of a destination resort, take a look at the Old School list.
https://www.theskidiva.com/forums/index.php?threads/old-school-ski-areas-to-explore.23997/
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Vail Resorts has been working hard to have opening dates that are pretty much guaranteed. VR announced quite a few dates back in the spring before the 2018-19 season was over. There will be quite a few VR resorts open in the west by Thanksgiving week.

Oct. 12: Keystone, CO
Nov. 8: Breckenridge, CO
Nov. 15: Vail, CO
Nov. 22: Heavenly, CA/NV
Nov. 22: Northstar, CA
Nov. 22: Park City, UT
Nov. 27: Beaver Creek, CO
Nov. 27: Crested Butte, CO
Nov. 28: Whistler-Blackcomb, BC, Canada

Nov. 27: Snowbasin, UT - on Epic pass but not owned by Vail Resorts
Nov. 28: Telluride, CO - on Epic pass but not owned by Vail Resorts

TBD as of mid-Oct: Kirkwood, CA
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
People who choose to be season passholders at Sun Valley, Snowbasin, or Telluride can get 50% day tickets at any Vail Resort for 2019-20. The three resorts are partners for Epic, but with limited days. The perk for season passholders is the same concept as what premium passholders at MCP resorts have been getting at other MCP locations. Still true for the independent resorts like Jackson Hole, but not true for Alterra resorts that don't have a separate season pass besides Ikon.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
I need to upload my photo for the Epic Pass.
People are getting their 2019-20 Epic passes in the mail. Sounds like it's well worth checking the status of your photo.

https://www.theskidiva.com/forums/i...eceive-their-epic-pass-yet.24249/#post-396398
I got mine yesterday in the mail! Ordered it over the summer, but when DH got his and mine didn't arrive soon after, we went online and realized I didnt have a photo. He had an old photo on file so they had used that but I needed to upload one. You would think they would have communicated this some how rather than just waiting for you to log in and see there was an issue! We uploaded the photo a couple of weeks ago.
 

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