Epic Pass 20/21

[raytseng]

Anybody know what exactly is the discounted cost of a “Buddy Ticket”. Or SWAF ticket has been?

I have access to 50%off tickets usually.....can Buddy tickets/SWAF beat that?

no it will not beat 50% off. buddy ticket is fixed and posted halfway down the page.

Ski With A Friend Tickets | Epic Season Pass

www.epicpass.com

swaf should be the same as advanced purchase price but with the flexibility to make your decision day of skiing

For most of the season except early early,
season or quirks such as buying child tickets, buddy will be cheaper than swaf.

 

[Dos-Equis]

Looks like they raised the prices on military and veteran epic pass =|

 

[Johnfmh]

Buddy Rates

 

[Johnfmh]

Thinking of biting the bullet and purchasing two all you can eat Epics for myself and my wife. This was my personal lift ticket spend thus far this season:

Ski Days 2019-20
23 December, Canaan Valley, $20
24 December, Canaan Valley, $17
17 January, Wachusett, $67
24 January, Whitetail, $56
02 February, Snowbasin, $129
03 February, Snowbasin, $115
04 February, Snowbasin, $115
05 February, Snowbasin, $105
06 February, Snowbasin, $105
07 February, Snowbasin, $105
1 March, Beaver Creek, $153
2 March, Beaver Creek, $153
3 March, Beaver Creek, $153
4 March, Beaver Creek, $153
Total spend: $1,446
Total spend on Epic Resorts: $1,342

I spent the same on my wife’s tickets. Most tickets at Basin and BC were 7 day advance online purchases.

We also rented on-slope demos (thanks @Philpug for all the great reviews) at Snowbasin and Beaver Creek. 6 days of demoing at Basin cost $235.95 per person. 4 days at BC, $235.95.

Took Epic Mountain Express from DEN to BC and back. Spent on average $40 for two people for food per day at BC, and $30 at Basin. I would probably take some half day lessons with the Epicpass discount.

Some additional BC stats: skied 124,907 vertical during 4 days. That works out to $.004489 per vertical foot skied.

 

[raytseng]

Thinking of biting the bullet and purchasing two all you can eat Epics for myself and my wife. This was my personal lift ticket spend thus far this season:

Ski Days 2019-20
23 December, Canaan Valley, $20
24 December, Canaan Valley, $17
17 January, Wachusett, $67
24 January, Whitetail, $56
02 February, Snowbasin, $129
03 February, Snowbasin, $115
04 February, Snowbasin, $115
05 February, Snowbasin, $105
06 February, Snowbasin, $105
07 February, Snowbasin, $105
1 March, Beaver Creek, $153
2 March, Beaver Creek, $153
3 March, Beaver Creek, $153
4 March, Beaver Creek, $153
Total spend: $1,446
Total spend on Epic Resorts: $1,342

I spent the same on my wife’s tickets. Most tickets at Basin and BC were 7 day advance online purchases.

We also rented on-slope demos (thanks @Philpug for all the great reviews) at Snowbasin and Beaver Creek. 6 days of demoing at Basin cost $235.95 per person. 4 days at BC, $235.95.

Took Epic Mountain Express from DEN to BC and back. Spent on average $40 for two people for food per day at BC, and $30 at Basin. I would probably take some half day lessons with the Epicpass discount.

Some additional BC stats: skied 124,907 vertical despite coming down with a bad cold the last two days of the trip. That works out to $.004489 per vertical foot skied.

Lol, if you want to break it down, you should do the price per lift. And imagine handing over a $10 bill for each lift ride.

 

[Johnfmh]

Lol, if you want to break it down, you should do the price per lift. And imagine handing over a $10 bill for each lift ride.

$612/77 = $7.94. So each lift ride cost a bit more than a Venti Latte at Starbucks or a moderately priced beer at a pub. The break even for the $979 pass is 123 rides at a flagship Vail resort.

 

[Big J]

My wife and I get the buddy passes with our Epic Veterans Pass and have never used any of them. For this coming season it says:
For Military Veterans
NO RESTRICTIONS
6 DISCOUNT TICKETS

I just checked with Epic today and the discount for the Veterans Pass is 10-15% off of the window rate. Not much but better than nothing.

 

[Big J]

Just like the IKON pass, I'm right at the breakeven point of this one too.

With 8-10 days a year of destination skiing, the value's not really there for me. And TBH, I've had such poor crowd experiences at all the major Epic resorts that the only ones I'd consider planning big trips to would be Telluride, which requires the full $980 pass, or Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, whose cheap windows rates are made even cheaper by the favorable US/Canada exchange rate.

So for the $50-100 max of potential savings, I'll probably skip Epic and Ikon again this year and instead enjoy the flexibility of not being tied to a pass. Although I'm still looking forward to news on the Mountain Collective or the Indy Pass.

The Indy Pass goes on sale 9/1/2020 for $139. Google it.

 

[Kcip]

I am surprised no one has mentioned this. Hasn’t Vail been offering 20% discounts on lodging for a while? I don’t currently have an Epic Pass, but I used to get emails for 96 hour 20% sales for Epic Pass Club members. They seemed to be common throughout the season.

 

[raytseng]

I am surprised no one has mentioned this. Hasn’t Vail been offering 20% discounts on lodging for a while? I don’t currently have an Epic Pass, but I used to get emails for 96 hour 20% sales for Epic Pass Club members. They seemed to be common throughout the season.

i mentioned it in post 53 and 62. nothing major is really changing. It is not an additional new 20% off, passholders already have been getting 20% off for the years now, if you booked through the link
Those sales events are extra discounts on top of the 20% you already are getting.

 

[TheFife]

Coronavirus?

I am about to pull the trigger on the Epic Local pass for myself and my 3 kids. This will be our first year skiing outside of the Midwest. Before I pull the trigger on an almost $2000 expenditure, I thought I would ask if anyone has thoughts about the whole Covid 19 situation. Does anyone think there is a risk of resorts being shut down, or anything that would cause my passes to lose their value? I don't know how much I am saving by buying the passes now instead of waiting, but I figure questions about the virus will be easier to answer in 6 months.

Thoughts?

 

[Mister Tea]

Lol, if you want to break it down, you should do the price per lift. And imagine handing over a $10 bill for each lift ride.

A couple years ago I did the math and determined that my season pass (not Epic) cost me an average of 25 cents per lift ride.

I'm very glad that can pay in advance so I don't have to show up every day with a big bag of quarters. (c:

 

[Big J]

i mentioned it in post 53 and 62. nothing major is really changing. It is not an additional new 20% off, passholders already have been getting 20% off for the years now, if you booked through the link
Those sales events are extra discounts on top of the 20% you already are getting.

My wife an I have looked at the lodging discounts for Whistler and have never used them as we always do better than that on our own for other lodging.

 

[jclee]

My wife and I have the Epic Veterans passes. All I had to do to qualify was to have served on active duty and have an Honorable discharge.

All you need is having served and honorable discharge. I did my entire service in the Army Reserves and I qualified for the Veteran pass. It's a decent enough deal but it's missing all of the partner resorts (Telluride, Sun Valley, Snowbasin, the BC resorts, Japan resorts and European resorts).

 

[Big J]

All you need is having served and honorable discharge. I did my entire service in the Army Reserves and I qualified for the Veteran pass. It's a decent enough deal but it's missing all of the partner resorts (Telluride, Sun Valley, Snowbasin, the BC resorts, Japan resorts and European resorts).

 

[Big J]

This is true. Once the Peak Resorts deal closes I will have my choice of over 54 resorts to ski unrestricted. If I go 7 times the pass is paid for at $569. I usually go to Whistler that many days and then ski my home resort Stevens pass for an average of 10 times a year. Sometimes I go other places as well. I can only ski so many places and it works for us very well.

 

[Big J]

The fact that the Military Veterans Pass is for all Vail owned and operated resorts and not partner resorts is stated earlier in this thread.

 

[Big J]

Looks like they raised the prices on military and veteran epic pass =|

Never fail to raise what they can.

 

[Big J]

$612/77 = $7.94. So each lift ride cost a bit more than a Venti Latte at Starbucks or a moderately priced beer at a pub. The break even for the $979 pass is 123 rides at a flagship Vail resort.

For the Military Veterans Pass using same lift ticket price is $569.00/77 = 7.38 tickets to pay for the entire pass.

 

[Ski&ride]

Coronavirus?

I am about to pull the trigger on the Epic Local pass for myself and my 3 kids. This will be our first year skiing outside of the Midwest. Before I pull the trigger on an almost $2000 expenditure, I thought I would ask if anyone has thoughts about the whole Covid 19 situation. Does anyone think there is a risk of resorts being shut down, or anything that would cause my passes to lose their value? I don't know how much I am saving by buying the passes now instead of waiting, but I figure questions about the virus will be easier to answer in 6 months.

Thoughts?

If you’re going to ski at Vail anyway, they’re unlikely to shut down entirely.

But if this impacts the industry, you may start to see serious discount in non-vail mountains. Whether you view that as your Epic pass losing value, only you can answer that.