Vail Resorts way of doing business

For days before the end of May, Vail Resorts has been harassing its pass-holders to renew. By placing upfront its 20% reduced rate promotion based on last year prices, and dangling the May 31 deadline for its “buddy ticket” it gave its clientele the impression that past that date, the discount would vanish.

Usually, I know that the cut-off date is around September 1, so I got into their chat room and asked the agent as to when that 20% cut off date was. He was instructed to answer that he didn’t know for sure and that the special discount could expire any time. Ah, ah! Great transparency indeed!

This isn’t all, though, wait till you read what follows. Skiers then can get to the different passes options, so first you go to the Epic pass, the full one, without black out dates, you glance at the offer and you say cool! Instead of paying $979 last year it’s just $783 now, wonderful!

Then I buy my 13 years old grandson his pass too, as I need a young companion when I do some gnarly skiing, so I hit “additional ages” in blue and I see that for him too the $499 I’d have to pay is only $399, (that’s not what I remember though), but wait a minute, this is for up to 12 and he’s now 13, so will I have to buy him a $783 pass like me? Ouch! That’s a lot of dough.

Fortunately, I now get smarter, scroll down and “Park City Youth Path” appears at only $311 down from the $389 I paid last year, but again, my grandson is now 13. What do I do? Get him the same pass as me, I guess.

 

That when I see that thin blue line that suggests “Additional Ages”, I hit the link and bingo! I finally discover the scoop. It will just cost me $335 to have my grandson ski with me. 

 

All this to say that Vail Resorts is not really transparent in its pricing, manipulates his clients a lot and I bet you that lots of folks buy two $783 passes when they should have purchase one for $783 and the other for $335 like I did after much search! 

Shame on you Vail Resorts!