Reciprocal ski passes like Freedom Pass and Powder Alliance create conundrum for independent ski areas, operators say
Ski area operators grappling with questions as Ski Cooper and Freedom Pass ready 2023-24 launch
Chris Dillmann | cdillmann@vaild
Much learning has come from the industry-changing Epic and Ikon passes, which offer unlimited access to numerous ski areas for less than it once cost for a season pass at a single Vail Resorts or Alterra property.
But while those companies seem to have it all figured out in terms of advance commitment and how it affects profits, for a lot of the other ski areas across the U.S., there’s still a lot to learn.
In the years that followed the proliferation of the Epic and Ikon passes, ski areas that weren’t a part of those products began banding together to compete with the mega passes. A result was the formation of reciprocal passes, which give guests unlimited access to one primary resort and a few days at others, so that skiers could receive access to many resorts with the purchase of one season pass, just like Epic and Ikon.
Ski Cooper, which sits on the border of Eagle and Lake counties, announced on Saturday it was joining the Powder Alliance, allowing Cooper season pass holders to ski three free days at 21 other resorts across the U.S. and Canada.
Cooper’s went on sale Saturday, with an adult pass (ages 22 to 74) being offered for $379 and a student pass (ages 15-21) offered for $249.
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Freedom Pass returning
Ski Cooper also intends to join another major reciprocal pass, the Freedom Pass which, like the Powder Alliance, allows guests access to numerous resorts with the purchase of one season pass.
Freedom Pass organizer Travis Dow, who is also the marketing manager of Lost Valley ski area in Maine, has confirmed the Freedom Pass will return for 2023-24, offering three free days to any Freedom Pass participant with the purchase of a season pass from any of those Freedom Pass participants.
“The way it works for us, for example, if someone comes from Yawgoo Mountain, they’ll show their Yawgoo season pass, and our ticket staff has a list, and they’ll just go on the Freedom Pass website and see that that’s one of our accepted mountains, they’ll issue them a ticket, and they’ll ski for the day,” Dow said.
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Dow described it as a low-tech tracking system, with Lost Valley keeping a list of everyone who has redeemed days at Lost Valley using other ski area season passes. Once a person redeemed three days, that person is no longer allowed to use a partner-mountain season pass at Lost Valley. The Powder Alliance, similarly, allows guests to simply show a 2023-24 season pass from any participating Powder Alliance area and receive free skiing benefits at all the rest.
The low-tech tracking system represents a major difference between reciprocal ski pass offerings (like Ski Cooper’s season pass, the Powder Alliance and the Freedom Pass) and the Epic and Ikon mega passes. Without the sophisticated tracking system offered by the mega passes, it’s hard for ski area operators to know if they’re getting any value out of giving away their primary product — lift access — for free to people who purchase a season pass to another ski area. Some ski area operators have left reciprocal ski passes in recent years for that reason.
PJ McSparran from Saddleback Mountain in Maine said he had considered joining a reciprocal ski pass last season, but had second thoughts about it.
“The Ski Cooper model is something that we looked into joining last year, we had kind of tentatively committed and verbally said, ‘yeah we think we’re gonna do this,’ and then before they went to print I just decided to pull out because it didn’t make a lot of sense to me,” he said.
Brundage Mountain in Idaho once participated in a reciprocal pass program but has also gotten away from it in recent years.
“You’re getting these visitors that are coming, and hopefully they’re buying a beer and a hamburger,” Ken Rider with Brundage said. “But there’s no way to track it.”
In trying to determine the value of reciprocal pass programs, Rider started asking guests about their home mountain.
“I started seeing an influx of visits from this one resort, and I’m like ‘Why is that? They’re not anywhere near us,'” he said. “And then I went and started researching what they’re selling their season pass for, and it was near the amount of a (single day) lift ticket here.”
Dow said while there are no standards as to what is required for a resort to join the Freedom Pass, there have been instances where an interested ski area has been rejected due to the fact that their season pass is too inexpensive compared to the rest of the offerings on the Freedom Pass.
“Let’s say there’s a small little ski hill with a tow rope and two trails, and it’s $99 a year to be a pass holder, and they’re near five other (Freedom Pass resorts), they’re probably not going to become part of the Freedom Pass, because I could just get a pass to this place for $99 and then ski at all these other mountains,” he said. “Three days apiece at each one is quite a bit of skiing for $99.”
Advent of the Indy Pass
The Freedom Pass doesn’t share revenue among resorts, instead offering an add-on for a ski area that is looking to offer an additional perk to its season pass purchasers.
But Rider said in examining the reciprocal agreements like the Freedom Pass, a problem that occurred to him was that those arrangements “aren’t driving revenue to the resort to help pay the wages of our staff and improve our facilities.”
Rider said he had the idea to do a revenue share-type program with a few other resorts, but wasn’t able to work it out.
“We tried to put something together, but it was the resorts managing it. … Collectively, we didn’t have the bandwidth or the power to really make that thing work,” he said.
A couple of years later, a new pass called the Indy Pass came along with an offer to do exactly what Rider had envisioned, offering two days at each resort, tracking all the days and the total revenue, and then splitting up the revenue based on the number of redemptions. The Indy Pass takes 85 percent of the revenue from Indy Pass sales and pays it out to the participating ski areas based on redemptions.
“I said that’s exactly what we need,” Rider said. “We jumped on the Indy Pass, did it for one or two years and realized this thing is actually working, so this past year we decided to focus our reciprocal deal on Indy Pass, where you buy a season pass to Brundage, and if you want the reciprocal deal, you can buy an Indy Pass add-on, and you can ski all those other resorts.”
Indy Pass founder Doug Fish said unbeknownst to Rider, Brundage was actually the very first area that signed onto the Indy Pass when he had the idea to launch it in the 2018-19 season.
“(Rider) was a visionary who saw what could be done, probably because he saw the value, and understood the complexity of execution,” Fish said. “And on a deal like this, the first one is the hardest to get, and the second one is the second hardest to get.”
In meeting with other ski operators and building the list of Indy Pass participants, Fish had a realization about why the Indy Pass was an easier sell than asking people to join a standard reciprocal arrangement, which doesn’t share revenue among participating resorts based on redemptions.
“It dawned on me that it’d be a lot easier to sell these guys if we were writing the checks to them, as opposed to the other way around,” Fish said. “That was part of the ‘ah ha’ moment that led to the Indy Pass — what do these resorts need? They need more visits, and they need more revenue.”
Fish said when Rider looks back on his efforts to do something similar, with Rider saying he didn’t have the bandwidth and the power to make it work, what Rider is really talking about is the back-end software of the Indy Pass, which tracks visits and performs the calculations necessary to pay out participating ski areas. Indy Pass uses a solution designed by Entabeni Systems, a Colorado-based company that believed in Fish’s vision and helped him execute it.
“The technology behind the Indy Pass is what makes it work so beautifully because it’s easy for consumers and it’s easy for resort to administer it, and that’s to the credit of Entabeni,” Fish said.
Earlier this year, Fish sold the Indy Pass to Entabeni Systems, a move he said will be better for the pass in the long run. Fish will remain employed with the Indy Pass, overseeing marketing and branding, while Entabeni Systems will run the back end.
Entabeni’s chief operating officer is Mark Schroetel, a former ski area operator and general manager with more than 25 years of experience in the business. Schroetel recently led Powder Mountain, in Utah, which is North America’s largest ski resort by acreage. An important part of Schroetel’s journey which led him to Entabeni occurred in 2021, when he took a closer look at reciprocal pass agreements.
“We made the decision to drop all reciprocal pass agreements at Powder Mountain and join the Indy Pass,” Schroetel said. “Analyzing the data we collected on reciprocal pass utilization from prior seasons showed a huge imbalance between inbound visits from other resorts’ pass holders and outbound visits from our pass holders. That data analysis sparked the realization that we were giving away our primary product for free and in exchange for little-to-no added value to our pass holders.”
What’s in a name?
Nevertheless, Dow said the Freedom Pass is still finding a receptive audience among the resorts which participate in the reciprocal arrangement. The Freedom Pass, Dow said, is expected to grow to 22 resorts in 2023-24, up from 13 in 2022-23. The Powder Alliance will also offer 22 resorts in 2023-24.
“It’s a great passholder benefit to offer, without having to incur any additional costs,” Dow said.
Dow said there’s been talk amongst himself and partners like Ski Cooper around the Freedom Pass name in recent months. The Powder Alliance, unlike the Freedom Pass, does not refer to itself as a pass, instead using the term alliance to symbolize the union or association which has been formed for the mutual benefit of all involved.
“There’s been some discussion around changing the name of it because there isn’t an actual pass that gets issued with it,” Dow said.
Meanwhile the Indy Pass, for the first time in 2023-24, will issue an actual pass like the Epic and Ikon passes. In years past the Indy Pass has been an electronic account accessed online only, with no physical pass issued.
“I don’t think it’s been hard for people to use their Indy Pass by presenting photo ID, that hasn’t really been an issue for passholders, but a physical pass is going to help speed up the process at the ticket window,” Fish said. “As we’ve grown, we’ve started to see some lines form at the ticket window in the morning, so we need to speed up the process.”
The issue of crowds has made Fish especially nervous about the future of the Indy Pass, and for the first time in its five-year history, the Indy Pass cut off sales for 2023-24, directing interested skiers to a waiting list if additional room opens up. This came after a year of record redemptions on the Indy Pass, and a year of record skier visits in the United States.
Entabeni Founder and CEO Erik Mogensen said keeping independent ski areas alive and well is a personal passion of his, which is what led him to examine reciprocal pass arrangements and get Entabeni involved with the Indy Pass.
“Our data makes clear that giving your main product away for free through reciprocal agreements is a costly mistake,” he said. “A mistake that Vail and Alterra are not making.”
