Are reciprocal pass coalitions dying? Or growing?
April 30, 2021
As Schweitzer joined the Ikon Pass last week, they quietly slipped out of the Powder Alliance, a reciprocal coalition that grants season passholders at member resorts free tickets to all partners.
“For 7 years, we were a part of the Powder Alliance and the most visited resort out of all 18 areas that were members,” reads an FAQ on Schweitzer’s website. “Powder Alliance generated about 5,000 visits across the season…”
This points to two big problems with reciprocal partnerships that multipasses are quickly resolving. The first is that the biggest, baddest mountains end up with the most redemptions. Bolton Valley President Lindsay DesLauriers told me on The Storm Skiing Podcast in January that this was the exact reason she yanked her mountain off the similar Freedom Pass coalition. She traded that membership for the Indy Pass (Bolton was on both for the 2019-20 season), which, like the Ikon Pass, pays their partners per visit, meaning no one is subsidizing someone else’s lunch.
The second is… 5,000 comp tickets in a season. Midweek lift tickets at Schweitzer ran $89 this past season. Weekends and holidays were $95. Even at the midweek rate, that adds up to $445,000 in evaporated revenue. And while it’s true that the Powder Alliance benefits likely acted as a powerful incentive to season passholders, driving at least some front-end revenue, Schweitzer’s new $999 Voyager season pass now includes an Ikon Base Pass (retail value $729), and all the mind-blowing Squaw-Snowbird-Alta-Snowmass-Big-Sky access that that comes with. That’s a great deal for passholders. And now Schweitzer will get a check from Alterra for every single Ikon Pass visit.
Still, Schweitzer is retaining reciprocal partnerships with Whitewater, Mount Hood Meadows, Sugar Bowl, Castle, Bridger Bowl, Loveland, Whitefish, Powder Mountain, and Grand Targhee. There are lots of conditions and exceptions and blackouts, but the mountain must see some value in retaining these relationships for its passholders.
Schweitzer is not alone. The Freedom Pass, which was on life support after Bolton Valley, Plattekill, Magic and others fled following the Covid asteroid, just added four new members: Cherry Peak and Eagle Point, Utah; Red River, New Mexico; and Snow Valley, California. Statistically, these look like good little mountains:
- Cherry Peak: 1,265-foot vertical on 400+ skiable acres, 322 inches average annual snowfall. Trail map.
- Eagle Point: 1,500-foot vertical on 650 skiable acres, 325 inches average annual snowfall. Trail map.
- Red River: 1,600-foot vertical on 209 skiable acres, 123 inches annual average snowfall. Trail map.
- Snow Valley: 1,041-foot vertical on 240 skiable acres. Trail map.
They’re all good adds, more or less equal in size and stature to the Freedom Pass’ Colorado duo of Ski Cooper and Sunlight. I don’t know how many passes these partnerships sell for any one partner, but it does illustrate the growing imperative among independent ski areas to latch onto some larger coalition.
Or more than one. Many Indy Pass resorts – China Peak, Silver, Mission Ridge, White Pass – remain on the Powder Alliance. The reciprocal coalitions must have some pull besides indie resort bonhomie. But there is mixing even among the paid coalitions – the crossover between the Ikon Pass and Mountain Collective is thick enough to inspire good questions about why both still exist.
All of which is a long way of saying that no one (except maybe Vail, which acts mostly alone) has this whole megapass thing figured out yet. The trend is toward consolidation under one banner, if not necessarily one ownership group. This is quietly accelerating even as the office park set moves $600 from the “Epic Pass” column of their annual budget spreadsheet to their “Save for New Riding Mower” column.
Posted from The Storm Skiing Journal
