Thank you Stowe!?

[Sugarbushskier9]

I am so stoked for winter to begin. Why? Because I was planning on purchasing a full adult Sugarbush pass for $1600 prior to the rate rise to $1800. I budgeted money this summer to purchase that pass. Since I'm 31 years old I needed the adult pass.

Then later in August I saw a facebook post from Stowe offering the young adult pass to ages 19-34 for $599 (price increases sometime in November)! Holy sh*t. Stowe? Offering a better deal than pretty much every other mountain if you are in the 30-34 year old age range. The drive to Stowe is not much different than Sugarbush to me (montpelier area) and I'm not going to lie, I was very tempted to buy that pass and save a thousand bucks. Sugarbush offered no such deal to people my age.

That must've sent the Bush into a tailspin because a couple weeks later I get an email that Sugarbush has all the sudden decided to offer a "young 30s" pass for $499! Are you f'ing kidding me? An east coast pass war just started for that age group. It was obvious Sugarrbush was not expecting that from Stowe and was caught with their pants down because when they first announced the young 30s pass Sugarbush didn't even have a price set for after the early deadline.

So what did I do? I purchased BOTH seasons passes AND still saved $500 from what I originally had budgeted over the summer. Holy crap! I still can't believe it. I have a seasons pass to both Stowe AND Sugarbush for like $1100. I saved $500 and can ride the two best resorts around here.

What does make me feel bad a little bad is after a really poor and rough season last year, Sugarbush was not expecting to have to drop pass prices for that age group by a thousand dollars. Their hand was forced and they now have lost probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from people that either had already purchased or were planning on purchasing a pass that are in the 30-35 year old age range. I have to imagine they refunded the difference of anyone in that age range who purchased a pass prior to the September announcement...because if you were say 34 years old and purchased a full adult pass prior to them developing the the young 30s product, you paid a heck of a lot more money than i paid. I'm sure they aren't stoked on the lost revenue but the need to keep that age group at Sugarbush is higher priority due to future spending.

Pass wars are good. The riders and skiers win.

BEST SEASONS EVER on the way!