February 4, 2009 E-MAIL PRINT

Negotiate your way to ski package vacations

by Tony Chamberlain/

With a little deft bargaining you could be heading toward your own mountaintop this winter. (photo: Tony Chamberlain)

With a little deft bargaining you could be heading toward your own mountaintop this winter. (photo: Tony Chamberlain)

My son and I try to keep a tradition going — meeting out west for a bachelor ski weekend, usually three or four days each winter. This year, it’s Big Sky Montana, a place where, among other things, you can find some of the sweetest lodging/lift bargains anywhere. After some negotiations in the price of the package, it was one more lump of sugar.

And this leads me to repeat myself. Once again, the economy is lousy, the destination ski business is slow, and whether you’re looking at the long-range ski/snowboard trip or the short-term day trip, get ready to bargain.

For some reason, Americans shy away from bargaining, something done widely in much of the world for everything from beans to Beamers. We are so used to paying sticker price here that it rarely occurs that, to a hotelier, an empty room is much worse than taking 30 percent off list price.

At the very least, check out the ads to see how ski areas and hotels are pitting themselves against one another these days. Especially as we approach the vacation, the cost-cuts — mostly in the form of packaging — are getting hot and heavy.

Where to start? Where the market is weakest. That would be the destination-area hotels, which are off as much as 50 percent in some resorts. You’ll see package ads — three nights at a certain price with lift tickets free. Given that three days of lift tickets are well north of $150 these days, that’s a pretty good savings.

But if you want to make an offer of your own, start by figuring out where the market is toughest — again, the far-flung destination resorts are in worse shape than those that have a brisk day ski business. Remember that except for the MLK weekend deep freeze, conditions have been excellent right across New England.

When you have your two or three resorts targeted, set down and break out what they’re charging for the rooms you want on the days you want them. Then figure the cost of lift tickets.

Now, make your calculation. If you think a 25 percent reduction is fair, make your offer. The more people you’re bringing, the better. A ski resort won’t mind losing some up-front money if it thinks visitors will be buying chili and playing video games.

Once you have a price, contact the marketing department of the resort you’re targeting and initiate a pleasant, non-threatening conversation. Explain that you’d like to bring your eight guests for a weekend in March and are willing to pay such and such for lodging and lift tickets.

You may be quite amazed at how readily your offer is accepted, or perhaps you’ll get a counter proposal to consider, and the process is joined.

If you feel a little too shy for this process, or squeamish going head to head, use the Internet. First, establish contact with their website and hit the "Contact Us" tab. Spell out your proposal and hit send. Easy as that.

Keep a couple of things in mind: You’re dealing with a business, and they have to make some money. So be reasonable, and remember businesses need to make something on a deal. So be reasonable and never insulting with your offer.

And if at very least you get a reject to your inquiry, what have you lost? All anyone can tell you is no.

But these days and in this economy, the bet here is if you’ve done a good job with your proposal, you won’t get that response very often.

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