March 17, 2010
Now is the time to buy for next ski season
by Tony Chamberlain/
Spring is time for slopeside play, but also for serious shopping for next season. (photo: Tony Chamberlain)
We usually look at the spring skiing and riding as the ending to yet another season. Life is pushing on into summer stuff – covers off boats, golf clubs in action again.
But spring these days has taken on a slightly new twist. For smart shoppers, this is really the time to start next season, and that has become the focus of marketing folks around snow country.
Of course this has always been the best time to buy your new skiing and riding gear. The deeply discounted equipment becomes a liability to retailers who want to get rid of it before next year’s stuff begins to arrive. This has always been the case.
But these days, ski resorts are raising capital by offering deep discounts on next year’s seasonal ski passes, and the bargains really are just that. Some areas are coming with special spring ski passes, and other areas are combining the two.
This end of the season has become truly the period for savvy ski consumers to make a move, both for the rest of this season – which is taking a turn out of the crazy storminess into real spring conditions.
In Vermont, check out Mount Snow, Bolton Valley, Pico Peak Mountain and Burke – all of them allowing skiers who buy next year’s pass to use it though the end of this season.
In Bridgton, Maine, skiers at Shawnee Peak can purchase next season’s ski pass before April 5 and get locked into the same pass price for the 2011-2012 season if they choose to buy again.
Jiminy Peak in the Berkshires is selling a Twilight Pass for next season, which is good every day from 3 to 10 p.m. for $239 until June 15 when it jumps to $289, then again to $339 next October.
Boyne’s Eastern resorts, Sugarloaf, Sunday River and Loon are selling next year’s passes discounted heavily. Though it can’t be used this season, the New England Pass is on sale for $599 ($499 juniors) until April 30. This pass has 14 blackout dates.
Mount Sunapee, Okemo, and Stratton are discounting next year’s season pass at $329 until April 30, and for $389 you can use it for the remainder of this season. This Super Pass is good for non-holiday use only.
Killington has a $169 spring pass available, good through May 2, and weather dependent.
Undoubtedly there are more bargains – including many at western resorts, which, unlike New England areas, are really in need of a boost. Where the East had a pretty solid season, western destination areas had another off-season, and their only way to fight back is with deep discounting.
The East is not quite as desperate as some in the West, yet when a marketing idea catches on – such as discounted season passes for the season ahead, combined with late season bonuses this spring – there’s a clamoring to get in. Consumers can only benefit.
So this late season – as sex appeal begins to get measured by the contrasting depth of one’s goggle tan – it is truly party central on the slopes.
But it’s also time for smart consumers looking to save quite a few bucks to begin making plans for next snow season.
