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Rewarding loyalty and locking in prices is nothing new.

Turn on the TV this evening to catch the Olympics and you’ll likely see a cell phone company or internet provider reminding you how many years you can keep today’s price if you sign a contract today. Whether it’s driven by competition, broader strategy, or celebrating an occasion, I’ve been intrigued by this idea of giving your most loyal skiers a chance to trade longer-term loyalty for a discount.

Over the years, resorts have poked at this idea a few times and in a few ways.

• 15 or so years ago Mountain Creek offered a multi-year price-lock pass that they tied to an election cycle. But before election day and you’d get the same price for the next four years.
• Arapahoe Basin gave it a go around the same time with the “Double Down Pass” that gave skiers shopping for passes in the fall of 2012 something that wouldn’t expire until spring of 2014.
• Saddleback offered the decade pass as a fun promotion around their 50th anniversary in 2010.

Today, the economics of life and the world are different for skiers. Resorts are no different. In the west, snow has only added to financial challenges for mountains whose skier visits have been decimated by lack of snow. My local mountain just closed, maybe for the season, after a month-long high pressure ended with a warm rain storm.

In response, and aligned to both their 60th anniversary and the construction of a new lift, Powderhorn in bringing back the multi-year pass concept to give it another go and ramp up the pre-season revenue push as the worst season in years drags on.

The more I learn about it, the more I think the timing, approach, and marketing of the pass is really clever. Take the post from PGRI’s LinkedIn page about the goals behind the pass:

“The 3-Year Pass aligns perfectly with that milestone moment [debut of a new lift] — giving passholders guaranteed access to the first full seasons of the new lift while providing the resort predictable, multi-year engagement. In an environment defined by rising costs and escalating pass prices, this approach blends affordability with reinvestment, guest loyalty with capital deployment, and heritage with forward momentum in the face of a challenging winter season.”

Three years also feels like a good balance between the reward of a discounted pass and the risk of all that could happen in life to prevent you from using all the value you’re getting when you buy.

But I also love that it’s not just a gimmick, they’re really committing to it as a strategy before other passes go on sale. Head to their homepage today and it’s not hidden on some pass page, it’s front at center in a way that’s impossible to miss.

Multi-year passes may never become a regular part of the resort pass lineup, but I don’t think they have to. They’re a unique, headline-grabbing lever that resorts can pull as needed to celebrate milestones, reward loyalty, and generate some revenue.

With all three being on the list for Powderhorn this year, I think this is a really clever idea.

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.