Originally Posted by
SwissBritMiss
When the Swiss gawk at your prices...
Thanks for that. Amazed to see the European availability - though you're right that the prescribed lodging does erode some of the benefit, and I ski Arlberg way more than 3 days a season!
I would love to see something similar in Europe for the bigger resorts. The season passes tend to be both expensive and regionalised - need to hit 20+ ski days to make sense vs. the walk-up, but crucially if it's cloudy in Davos it is probably still cloudy the next valley over, whilst it might be a bluebird day in Zermatt. I pay for the flexibility - white stuff problems.
The Skistar season pass for Scandinavia is ok value for me since they own so much of the skiing in that region, but I'd rather have an Epic Season pass for use in the US, Canada and various parts of the "Old World" to get far more options based on where the snow is good and where I can use points/loyalty program awards to cover my lodging.
If you want to gawk at prices, you should see my bills for ski lessons in Colorado and Utah compared to my bills for ski lessons in Europe. Even Norway and Switzerland are a ski lesson bargain compared to prices at the resorts I hit up in the US.
I'm surprised that European resorts don't try to grab more East Coast American ski business, especially now that winter/spring TATL economy class fares are so reasonable compared to flying within the US to go from the East Coast to ASE/EGE/SLC or even DEN.