Lately, I’ve been surprised to run across a few weather-dependent deals. Letting mother nature decide your fate can be risky but can also bring a nice reward from a marketing perspective. For example, a local Jeweler will refund every purchase made between November 27 and December 24 if, and ONLY IF, 4″ of snow fall between 8pm and 2am on New Years Eve / Day. Risky, but they are getting a lot of attention for it.  We’ll see if the risk is worth the reward.

Much less risky (no refunds involved) is a pass that gives you lift access on the days that your resort gets a certain amount of new snow overnight like Copper Mountain’s Snow Day pass. Whenever Copper gets 4″ or more, Snow Day Pass holders have a valid lift pass. On other days, not so lucky. Here is the full list of details from Copper’s website:

• Ski/Ride on any 4″+ Day!
• No Blackout Dates
• Two (2) Friends & Family tickets available for just $59
• Guaranteed access on 2/6/11 and 4/15/11 (with or without the help of Mother Nature)
• Non-transferrable picture product
• Non-refundable & not for resale
• Quantities are limited

What makes this deal amazing is that 4″+ days happen more than 40 times a year.  So (…enter infomercial mode…) what would you pay for such an awesome pass that gives you access to freshies 40 times in a season? Would you pay $799 (the regular season pass rate), $599, $499, or even $299? No, if you order the Copper Snow Day pass today (or anytime really) you’ll get all this for just $99 [Applause].

I would pay $99 for a 4″+ pass like this at 70″-annually Sugar Mountain in North Carolina, but at 282″-annually Copper Colorado, this deal is something special. I would not be surprised to see something like this start popping up at resorts in other parts of the country as well. If it does, it will be interesting to see how prices vary depending on annual snowfall. Cool stuff.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.