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IKON PASS OFFERS THE GOOD STUFF FOR WINTER 23/24 ON MARCH 16....

locknload

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At roughly $200 plus a day for lift tickets, it doesn’t take much to get your money back on an Ikon pass. We are on track to get somewhere between 12-15 days on ours and that is considerably cheaper than any other option.
Same situation for me. I wish I could ski as much as some of the folks here but with the age my kids are at and their activities...we have some limitations. Really it takes only about 5 ski days to get the investment back. I'll ski 15 to 16 days this year.
 

dbostedo

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At roughly $200 plus a day for lift tickets, it doesn’t take much to get your money back on an Ikon pass.
Yeah, but if you really only think about it that way, then the current model will always make the pass pay off, as they raise both pass price and day ticket price. At some point people have to consider cost per day independently, and see if skiing these places is worth it to them, pass or not.

I.e. if you don't use your Ikon too much, and you wind up with $180 per day of skiing, you can't really say "well it still made sense to buy the pass, because it would have been $200 per day otherwise". In actuality, it would probably have made sense to ski elsewhere, from a cost/benefit standpoint.
 

locknload

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Yeah, but if you really only think about it that way, then the current model will always make the pass pay off, as they raise both pass price and day ticket price. At some point people have to consider cost per day independently, and see if skiing these places is worth it to them, pass or not.

I.e. if you don't use your Ikon too much, and you wind up with $180 per day of skiing, you can't really say "well it still made sense to buy the pass, because it would have been $200 per day otherwise". In actuality, it would probably have made sense to ski elsewhere, from a cost/benefit standpoint.
I think the point is....if you are gonna ski 5/6 days or more AND you are gonna ski places where Ikon is the pass....you earn the $ back so quickly that it then gives you the option to have gravy...e.g....even a single day more costs you nothing. It gives you the option, if your circumstances allow, to add a bunch more days. Yes..if you are CERTAIN that you won't ski a day more than 5 or 6 days...then perhaps it does make sense to pay a la carte...but you really have to be sure. I think of it as fixed/cost and budget for the ski season...you pay it, its gone and then never think about it again. Obviously, we all approach it differently. Anytime you can drive your cost per usage down below $100, I think you are doing pretty well.
 

Slim

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At roughly $200 plus a day for lift tickets, it doesn’t take much to get your money back on an Ikon pass. We are on track to get somewhere between 12-15 days on ours and that is considerably cheaper than any other option.
For sure, if you can get 12+ days, Ikon is easy.
But the question from @locknload was if these large price increases would deter customers, and my family is an example of that.

Without local Ikon hills, it is hard to make enough days to make it worth it. Whereas, the first year, it was an easy call.

Also, lift tickets are still not always $200/day. Our last trip , during Presidents’ Day, week, Powder Mountain and Brighton were around $130 I believe, and less if you do a 4 pack or such.
 

raytseng

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I think though it is often self fulfilling. If you get the pass you end up skiing more, if you don't get a pass you don't ski as much, so your decision is always justified...speaking as a generalality.

Of course there are going to be folks that don't get their value, but there are also those are on daytickets that want to ski more.
Given the passholder % is going up though indicates the it is an inflow to passes rather then steady or the other way around.

I think the vail stats had it at median 8days per passholder, with an ETP of $80. ETP includes both day pass holders and 100days a year ppl though, so it's a little harder to unpack. But roughly that's reasoning why they have the epicday 7 for sale to people right at the cutover point
 

dovski

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For sure, if you can get 12+ days, Ikon is easy.
But the question from @locknload was if these large price increases would deter customers, and my family is an example of that.

Without local Ikon hills, it is hard to make enough days to make it worth it. Whereas, the first year, it was an easy call.

Also, lift tickets are still not always $200/day. Our last trip , during Presidents’ Day, week, Powder Mountain and Brighton were around $130 I believe, and less if you do a 4 pack or such.
Everyone has to do their own personal evaluation to figure out the right solution for them. For many years my local hill would provide a big discount if I added on a Mountain Collective pass plus kids were free. So we used to get our local season pass and add on a mountain collective pass for about $200, this clearly gave us the biggest bang for our buck. Last year they discontinued that discount and Mountain collective raised their prices plus started making you pay for the kids passes. We did the math and given where we ski plus the total number of days we ski and Ikon made the most sense. To be clear, this is still not cheap as we spend about $4k on Ikon passes for the entire family, plus we bought season passes at our local hill and we also got Edge cards for Whistler. Skiing is not cheap, but at the same time this is our family's past time and our children's chosen sport. So while some families take tropical vacations or go to Disneyland (again these are not cheap either) we chose to ski. This choice is an expensive one, so we always are looking for ways to optimize what we spend. Recent changes to the cost of passes and my kids ski programs have really increased what we need to budget ... so we have cut back elsewhere as money does not grow on trees.

Now all this being said, I do think skiing is financially out of reach for the majority of families. More importantly it feels like that financial barrier to entry has become much more pronounced over the last 5 years. This is unfortunate as I do think it will prevent future generations from enjoying skiing the way we do. These large price increases will not only deter, but will actually prevent many families from skiing. Our family is already have the conversation about next year and while we likely will still get the Ikon pass, we are looking at making significant cutbacks in other areas to reduce what we spend on skiing, or at the very least keep the cost in check with what we spent 2-3 years back.
 

Tom K.

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Certainly individual-specific, but Mrs. K and I ski Sun Valley every winter -- and relive our youth by gathering with friends we've know since the late 80s, and owned houses with, and, and, and...

So I suspect we'll likely always be going there as long as we ski. If I figure things correctly, I'm at least even with Ikon if I ski SV ~ 6 days, and nowhere else?

So I'm probably in for next year, hoping it encourages me/us to sample other areas in the group that are now within reach of us (Schweitzer and Revvy for two).

But oh my, I really don't want to become an i-Hole! ;)
 

crosscountry

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At roughly $200 plus a day for lift tickets, it doesn’t take much to get your money back on an Ikon pass. We are on track to get somewhere between 12-15 days on ours and that is considerably cheaper than any other option.
That's not true for many. I can ski for less than half of that $200/day at my local mountains!

I'm not talking about little 200' bumps. These are legit mountains. Just not glitzy resorts. So it takes twice as many days for me to break even. That's pretty much the same number of days I get to ski in a season anyway.

I've made my money's worth on the first 2 years of IKON. I've visited almost all of their destinations that I've not been to. OK, many of them were on Mountain Collectives and/or MAX pass in years past. So the ones I've not been to were a short list, which I ticked off quickly. And revisited many I liked the most.

This year will likely be the last I buy a "mega pass" for a while. It's no longer worth skiing the big mega mountains any more.

I don't ski enough number of days to justify the big passes. In owning those passes, I've neglected several of my local favorites that are not on the mega pass. I'm feeling quite strongly of giving them my money for the next couple of seasons. I will likely spend less on lift tickets over all. More over, I'm tired of traveling too. So in skiing my local favorites, I save on both travel expense and lift tickets.

(I'm not going to glorify my skiing local as "supporting local business". It's just after all the travel and seeing the best of the world - yes, I've used the international benefit too, I found skiing is just a simple enough pleasure. I enjoy it well enough in my local mountains)
 
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crosscountry

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Yes..if you are CERTAIN that you won't ski a day more than 5 or 6 days...then perhaps it does make sense to pay a la carte..
You're speaking as someone who's "home mountain" is part of IKON?

For those of us who have the option to go outside of Vail/Alterra, that's not at all the way our thinking goes. It's not just how many days to break even. It's how many days TO WHICH MOUNTAIN to break even!

Season pass had existed for decades before Vail/IKON came along. Every year, we looked at the price and how many days we likely will use it. Only that we don't just look at IKON and EPIC. We also look at other mountains too.

This business of high day ticket price to "justify" increasing pass price doesn't work for those of us who have the option to go to mountains what hadn't yet raised their day ticket price to the stratosphere.

I think of it as fixed/cost and budget for the ski season...you pay it, its gone and then never think about it again. Obviously, we all approach it differently.
The way I approach it is different. If I hadn't "sunk" my money for the pass, I get to choose only ski when I will enjoy it. I don't want to feel pressured to ski just to say I "break even".

Anytime you can drive your cost per usage down below $100, I think you are doing pretty well.
On that equation, I would only buy a pass if the per day cost end up around $50.

With promotions and such, I can ski my local favorites for anything around $70-80. A pass need to beat (not just "match") that price point. I don't ski enough to make an IKON pass pay.
 
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locknload

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You're speaking as someone who's "home mountain" is part of IKON?

For those of us who have the option to go outside of Vail/Alterra, that's not at all the way our thinking goes. It's not just how many days to break even. It's how many days TO WHICH MOUNTAIN to break even!

Season pass had existed for decades before Vail/IKON came along. Every year, we looked at the price and how many days we likely will use it. Only that we don't just look at IKON and EPIC. We also look at other mountains too.

This business of high day ticket price to "justify" increasing pass price doesn't work for those of us who have the option to go to mountains what hadn't yet raised their day ticket price to the stratosphere.


The way I approach it is different. If I hadn't "sunk" my money for the pass, I get to choose only ski when I will enjoy it. I don't want to feel pressured to ski just to say I "break even".


On that equation, I would only buy a pass if the per day cost end up around $50.

With promotions and such, I can ski my local favorites for anything around $70-80. A pass need to beat (not just "match") that price point. I don't ski enough to make an IKON pass pay.
As I said initially, your analysis and cost/benefit algorithm may be different. Not trying to get into a debate. Do whatever works for you. Of course, the biggest driver is how many days you ski and where you will ski...I think that part of it is fairly obvious. Only you can determine that for your own situation.
 

crosscountry

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Not trying to debate. Just that the price increase had now made it a calculation worth doing.

A few years back, it's an easy calculation in favor of the pass. Now, it's questionable for some and no longer worth it any more.

No matter how much the destination mountains raise their daily price, it is irrelevant for some of us. For those of us, the other side of the equation is still what people's home mountain prices are.
 

Snowflake2420

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I can see how the pricing has priced out some destination skiers to buy a full Ikon for example, but for those of us near a metro area Ikon and Epic don't seem high enough to make any dent in volume. This is the problem with a one size fits all pass.
 

fatbob

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If you're a 20+ day per year skier and can get those days on your pass then an Epic/Ikon whatever is no brainer. That therefore includes frequent travellers as well as dedicated weekend warriors.

Obviously to the extent you'd rather get your time in at local bargain hills or avoid peak megapass weekend insanity it might change your perspective.

But the megapasses make the most cheddar per unit of infrastructure from those they get to travel a couple of times or more a season and lock in while spending like its a vacation.
 

dovski

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Honestly with the cost of lift tickets at most destination resorts, one trip essentially pays for you Ikon/Epic pass and then some. my 2 days at Crystal and 4 at JH would have cost me well over $1200 had I not had the Ikon Pass. We will be using out Ikon passes for Banff/Lake Louise for another 5-6 days plus likely another 2-3 at Crystal. Any way you slice it this is the most cost effective way for us to ski all these resorts. Originally we had also planned to ski Red, Schweitzer and Mt. Bachelor also Ikon resorts but those plans got cancelled. So we will land at around 14 days on our pass vs. the 20+ we originally planned for ... still the best deal going. We also have a pass to our local mountain and an Edge card we used at Whistler and Stevens this years ... sounds crazy buying 3 different passes, but it was what we needed as daily ticket prices would have crushed our souls without them.
 

Pasha

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Anyone knows how much Ikon pays to partner resort per skier/day? Just curious.
 
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In2h2o

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FWIW even though a family member deferred 22/23 IKON they will still get the 'renewal' discount for the 23/24 season :)
They won't however allow the Covid settlement money to be used for them as well, but thats ok b/c its good for 2 years.
 

ActionStar

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I see Ikon has some global & US-based partner groups; as well as, student groups with cheaper rates than the normal student discount...anyone know if we get like 20, 30, 50 people together if we can get a Ski Talk group discount?
 

raytseng

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I see Ikon has some global & US-based partner groups; as well as, student groups with cheaper rates than the normal student discount...anyone know if we get like 20, 30, 50 people together if we can get a Ski Talk group discount?
Are you asking about a student discount or an adult discount?
If you are looking for college discount look here and ask the listed clubs/groups that are already registered here.
https://www.ikonpass.com/en/college

If you're asking about adult discount. The issue why it isn't started up is the group discount just brings it to about or slightly higher than renewal price. So most of the people here are already passholders so don't need a group deal; and I don't think you will get big numbers.

And it seems no one is interested to take up the organization burden just to help out for 1st time passholders / lurkers.
If you want to take up that task though, go for it though.
 

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