catharsis

All,

I decided to co-ordinate the annual St. Patricks Day Ski trip this year for our ski group and, being ambitious, decided we would go for a 12-17 day trip to Colorado.

We are all regular skiiers based in Europe and have all skiied Chamonix, Val d'Isere, Verbier, St anton and the like, and we wanted to experience the famed Colorado experience so decided to make a 'once-in-a-lifetime' two-three week trip to the rockies.

I obtained accomodation, researched lift-passes and found there was an 'epic pass' which allowed unlimited skiing for US$599 (maybe 629?) per person, and on that basis calculated costs and invited people to come.

We will be a group of 8 people.

I just logged-on to the snow.com website to reserve the passes for everyone and found out that these passes can no longer be bought. Instead we are being told that we must pay approx 1200 per head for 14-day passes plus some additional single-day passes.

So my query - is there ANY way for us to still get these passes, or to otherwise save money on the lift tickets somehow?

Basically ANYTHING which will now allow us to minimise or cut the amount spent on lift tickets has just become an urgent priority for me. I would really appreciate any pointers or advice.


It will be impossible to justify the trip if there is an extra 4-4.5k expenditure on lift tickets required and we would have to cancel the accommodations, as well as flights for those who have not already booked etc. I would guess conservatively the total loss to CO if we do not come will be about US$ 30-35k counting spending once we arrive... what are they thinking with such exorbitant season-pass prices? - the best resorts in the world (Val, Cham, St Anton) are a fraction of these prices for long passes (although the rates are very comparable for shorter stays).

jneugeba

Where are your accommodations? The only thing I can think of right now is getting a Copper Mountain Season Pass for $799. If you are staying in Vail, it would take about 30 minutes to get there, which isn't bad, but isn't ski in/out. Copper is really a nice mountain that is frequented more by locals than by tourists.

http://www.coppercolorado.com/winter.../season_passes

As for the prices, yes Vail and Beaver Creek are crazy expensive, mainly because they can get away with it. We have some of the best snow every this year and they have been very busy. They know they can charge it and do

catharsis

accom is the Sheraton in Avon/Vail

we could drive to Copper (which I have heard great things about) but will still want to ski vail/beaver/breck/A-basin etc as well....

Thanks for the lead on the copper mountain season pass though.

I guess it's time to start crazily scouring the web for every discount code/special offer/sneak deal/dirty trick I can find to reduce the overall cost here. I had no difficulty dropping 5k on passes for the group - but will now look at any means ethical or otherwise to keep the costs from rising too much above that point!

jneugeba

Good luck!! If I think of anything else I'll post. It used to be pretty easy for locals to get $25 list tickets, but those days are long gone. I always thought it was much cheaper when you came for longer, but that doesn't seem to be the case either. You could try the hotel, I know sometimes they have some deals.

pseudoswede

I see $980 for 14 days of skiing in mid-March.

http://www.vail.com/plan-your-trip/l...-explorer.aspx

Season passes are usually available for purchase between May and October.

Call Vail, call your accomodations, and hopefully someone will be able to get you a better deal.

catharsis

Just to confirm it was when I called vail that they told me "924 for 14-day pass + 2-3 extra days at 94 each or a 3 day pass at 267" - the guy said he didn't know of any way to add 'extra' days at the cheap rate to the 14 day pass and that he thought we would have to start again.

(to be honest he sounded slightly embarrassed)

My original language was unclear - we want around 16-17 days worth of skiing and the initial response from vail was 924(for 14 days) + 267 (for the additional days) = 1200 (approx) "for a 14-day pass and some additional day passes" - is that clearer or more helpful?

I am amazed that there does not seem to be some sort of 'Colorado pass' available to international visitors like us who would really like to do a 'ski safari' and visit a lot of the different resorts in Colorado during one visit - seems like a missed opportunity to me.

Thanks for the suggestions, I will try to reach out to my accomodation and see do they have access to some discounts.

RLG

Unfortunately, I have advice that will help people reading this thread in the future, but not the OP.

The Epic passes are unbelievable bargains if you're going to be doing more than a week of skiing. However, you need to buy them BEFORE SKI SEASON STARTS. The deadline this year was November 5, 2010.

It's surprising that anyone participating in an airline forum would be surprised by the idea that there might be some great travel bargains that have to be booked right away or that prices for travel might be ridiculously high if booked too close to the travel dates. (Compare super discounted airline fare sales to last minute full price tickets.)

My suggestion to the OP would be to ski Europe again this year and go to Colorado next year but buy your Epic passes EARLY.

rustyr

If you won't ski during Prez wkend(Feb 19-21) MLK(this wkend) or wk after xmas, then the Colorado Pass is good enough and it's 150$ cheaper. You get 3 $59 lift passes and 6 ski with a friend passes for 80$ loaded on your Colorado pass. The ticket window price for Breck last week was 102$. I think w/ the Epic pass you get 12 ski w/friend tkts loaded and not sure how many59$ ones u receive. But alas, that won't do you any good now. Sometimes, ebay has them listed as far as individual lift tkts or someone selling their access to the pass temporarily, but vail resorts watches ebay. Probably same w/craigslist and then you would be dealing w/someone you never heard from before. Amex used to offer day passes for point redemption but I don't know of any offers right now. You can always scurry around the tkt windows listening for someone offering tkts for a discount. It wouldn't be much and to be brutally honest, not the way to plan a trip like this.

rustyr

PS there is no multiresort pass in Colorado. Vail doen't like neghboring resorts(Copper) that are not partners w/them. There is a US ski team pass for sale that you can ski anywhere across the country. The cost is either partly or wholly deductable for I am assuming US residents. No I don't remember the price exactly but seems to me it was around $2600.

pseudoswede

Multiply that amount by almost 4!

http://www.ussa.org/magnoliaPublic/u.../goldpass.html

pseudoswede

This past season was the first season you could purchase the Epic Pass on-line. Normally, you had to physically show up to initially purchase your Epic Pass so a photo can be taken (subsequent renewals could be done on-line).

We probably won't know until at least April if they will offer the Epic Pass on-line again for first-time purchasers.

DenverF9Flier

First off, do you really need to ski 17 days in a row? Regardless of how hard-core you are, take a day off every couple days... sleep in, have a big breakfast, then strap on some snowshoes, x-country skis, drive to the Glenwood Hot Springs, or rent some snowmobiles and hit Vail pass. If you're there for that long, you're going to have days where the snow is great and days where it's not - read coloradopowderforecast.com and plan strategically for when to take off. I don't know if the 14-day pass is for 14-days straight or it lets you skip a few, but it you have a large group you could always stagger them.

Second - if you're open to switching accommodations, you might check out Southern Colorado - Wolf Creek and the San Juan mountains aren't getting hit as hard this year as last, but they have smaller and more intimate resorts = aka fewer crowds, shorter lift lines, and much cheaper prices. Plus the powder lasts longer since they're predominately filled with Texans who ski down the middle of the runs and not through the trees. For that matter, check out Utah - I live in Colorado and I own a condo in Breckenridge, but I can honestly say that Utah is better skiing than Colorado - and cheaper. But Vail is definitely at the top of my list in Colorado as far as the Mega-Resorts go.

Lastly, they used to sell discount lift tickets at the grocery stores like King Soopers and Safeway, not sure if they still do. I think there's another thread on that right now.

Sorry about your predicament. Vail Resorts (and the other ski area owners) have a vested interest in selling us (locals) cheap passes to raise early-season capital and because we have other options for stuff to do in the winter, whereas tourists are going to come anyways (bookings are up even through the recession)... I have always said skiing is one of the cheapest things to do for a local and one of the most expensive for out-of-towners, but when you're up to your waist on a Tuesday afternoon in Blue Ski Basin with not a soul around, it will all somehow seem worth it.

RLG

I know it has been available longer than this since I bought my first Epic pass online in August 2008. I've done the online renewal since.

catharsis

good to know for future reference ^
AMEN ^

Many thanks for the kind words and great suggestions (and to other posters also)

I think the developing plan is to get maybe 12-day (of 15 I think) passes, add a couple of single day passes in Copper or similar, and possibly plan for an 'away day' to a more distant resort than Vail/Breck/A-Basin, which are all covered on our 12-of-15-day pass.

Staying at different accomodations isn't really an option (given we've paid about us$1000 per night already ) ... but we might look at one night away for a few of the hard-core skiiers who wanted to sneak in a day or two in another resort.

On that topic - assuming we have cars but probably NOT a 4WD - What would the recommendations be for a MUST VISIT in Colorado outside of the 'vail resorts' - either for a day trip from Avon/Vail or requiring an overnight stay?

Thanks in advance for any recommendations

rustyr

go over to www.epicski.com and go to the resorts forum- maybe they can give you ideas- you will have to register(No biggie) and post your request. Also www.liftopia.com lists lift tickets at discount in advance- they have A-basin/Loveland/Copper. Also had a $93 Keystone lift tkt that included 15$ lunch. Keystone has some Cat skiing in back bowls for I think, 5-10$ per ride. I know the shell stations in Colorado are doing a BOGO after 10 gallon gas which also includes Copper. There's a Shell in Dillon right off I-70.