Mountain Collective/Ikon/Epic 20/21.

Tony Crocker":1yi1plf8 said:
I renewed our Ikons a week ago. I wanted to get that out of the way before my cross country road trip started last Friday.

Liz was relatively restrained about buying live music events this year due to her being in Florida all but 4 days since Feb. 1. We have 2 concerts in September, so it's too early to know when/if they will be rescheduled.

Live entertainment (such as large concerts) is off the table here in Oz. I suspect it will be one of the last things to get back to normal.
Anecdotal of course but I detect a distinct loosening of the shackles here - from the public's point of view anyway. I feel that when things start to open up we will move back to 'pre-covid' life quicker than I suspected they may only one month ago. I'm even more optimistic on at least some international travel being practically possible in early 2021. I think Japan is the most likely ski destination to be available for Aussies.
Off topic but Covid must be taking a relative back seat in your parts. Other news worthy items would be dominating I would think?
 
Sbooker":1m64zk7d said:
Off topic but Covid must be taking a relative back seat in your parts. Other news worthy items would be dominating I would think?
Yes. Another big problem made much worse by someone that some of us hope will go away this Fall/Winter.

Somebody else from Australia posted on pugski that Ikon and MCP would not be valid at Thredbo this year, but I think that was based on outdated info (or before somebody's lawyers told them what was in the contract they signed). Note that Thredbo is not selling their passes this year.

I'm still undecided on Ikon. It could be a year that I will be happy to be able to only ski Vail Tahoe resorts. I'm not sure I want to give Ikon an interest-free loan from mid-June 2020 before skiing in Spring or late-Fall 2021, when I could apply my funds to higher priced passes, assuming they can stay in business.

Since nobody has responded, I'm editing to add that Sun Peaks, BC has been added to the Mountain Collective.

The email from Ticketmaster for concert where I spent $375 for two pre-sale upper deck (but not on side) tickets said If you do not choose this option by June 1, 2020, your tickets will remain valid for the rescheduled date. Note that it says 'by' not 'before'

You have until June 1, 2020 to choose the option below (Request a Refund). When I clicked on link this AM, I did not see that option. So I called and phone tree said nobody is answering phone due to Covid-19. So I waited until 9 AM local time and was able to do Live Chat where Erika said they canceled my order and I would be refunded (first she said $137.24, but corrected it without my prompting). I took a lot of screen prints and pasted them into a document for refund requests. I still see the tickets in my account.
 
tseeb":8exj2ph0 said:
I'm not sure I want to give Ikon an interest-free loan from mid-June 2020 before skiing in Spring or late-Fall 2021
At what interest rate would that be these days???? You're essentially betting on no price increase a year from now, which is of course possible in a slow virus reopening scenario.

My Ikon decision is easier. Most of my skiing at Mammoth is early/late season and midweek, so it's hard to believe it won't pay off even if there are capacity restrictions. The Ikon is also good for day trips to Big Bear.

I'm making a more substantial interest free loan to the L.A. Dodgers, paid in installments from Sept. 2019 - Feb.2020. The Dodgers are giving a 10% bonus applicable to future expenses (most likely postseason) if we leave that money on deposit. Again, 10% seems worth it even if takes 2 years.

I agree live sports and music events will be the last things to return to normal. But I think Oz and NZ might achieve full eradication and truly return to normal internally while remaining isolated from the rest of the world. Here COVID-19 may be managed but it won't disappear without a vaccine.
 
Tony Crocker":2m7jq11v said:
tseeb":2m7jq11v said:
I'm not sure I want to give Ikon an interest-free loan from mid-June 2020 before skiing in Spring or late-Fall 2021
At what interest rate would that be these days???? You're essentially betting on no price increase a year from now, which is of course possible in a slow virus reopening scenario.
You can still get 1.3% on Savings accounts if you look hard, but rates are dropping. Even the rewards checking I have has cut rate from 2.02% to 1.51% (on first $25K). It makes me wish I had bought more CA tax-free bonds a year ago as I was still seeing good quality 16 years to maturity paying 2.50-3% and now the quality is not as good and you only get 2%. A even shorter term wish would have been buying more of a Blue Chip stock 15 days ago that was paying over 7% dividend and has gone up 9% and is still paying 6.6%. (I've mostly done well buying stocks and seeing profits, but am not always good at selling.)

The renewal discount for Ikon is only for this year $599/$749/$799 for Base/Base with Aspen and Jackson/Full (without renewal is $699/$849/$999). So if I bought full now for $799 and things don't look good for traveling to Aspen in Feb, I would defer until Spring 2021, assuming you could ski Mammoth and Squaw and maybe Bachelor starting in April with the following year's pass, or following winter. It gets complicated as the upcoming season is the one where I would want to pay extra for Aspen and if I didn't go I would have $799 credits and next year's Base pass, assuming a $50 increase would be $749 (corrected as discount would most likely go away) and $50 of our deferred $ would most likely go to waste. Or to put it another way, for the price of next winters Full pass, if we defer, we would only get a Base pass the following season.

While writing this I saw Ikon has changed their terms. Instead of being able to defer an unused pass from Sept. 10 to Dec. 10, you can now defer unused pass through April 11. They have also added Adventure Assurance to try handle Covid-19 closures. See https://www.ikonpass.com/en/adventure-assurance for details and there is also a link to examples of how the following would work.

CHOOSE ALL DESTINATIONS
If any eligible Ikon Pass destination closes due to COVID-19 for 1 day, all days or anywhere in between, between December 10, 2020 and April 11, 2021, you will receive a proportional credit based on the percentage of those days closed during that time period. Your credit will be applied automatically to any 21/22 Ikon Pass.

CHOOSE ONE ELIGIBLE DESTINATION
If the one eligible pass destination you select is closed at least 7 consecutive days or 21 total days between Dec 10, 2020 and April 11, 2021 due to COVID-19, you will receive a credit based on the percentage of those days closed during that time period. The credit can be applied to any 21/22 Ikon Pass.
 
Sun Peaks added to Mountain Collective. A smart addition I think.
Western Canada now offers Sun Peaks, Revelstoke, Panorama, Lake Louise and Sunshine. Road trip anyone?
 
Sbooker":tnjc370f said:
Sun Peaks added to Mountain Collective. A smart addition I think.
Western Canada now offers Sun Peaks, Revelstoke, Panorama, Lake Louise and Sunshine. Road trip anyone?
I like the resorts on the Mountain Collective list for next season. However, I'm having trouble swallowing their paltry offer of about an 11% credit ($50) toward next season for those of us that didn't use our MC pass at all this season, especially when Ikon is offering 100% credit for those in the same boat with a 19/20 Ikon Pass.
 
baldyskier":23h5xr0x said:
...Ikon is offering 100% credit for those in the same boat (unused pass) with a 19/20 Ikon Pass.
Is that posted anywhere? I know I've seen Facebook posts in Ikon Pass groups about it, but wondering if they emailed everyone who didn't use their pass or if it's something you need to know about to get.
 
tseeb":gp1et43a said:
baldyskier":gp1et43a said:
...Ikon is offering 100% credit for those in the same boat (unused pass) with a 19/20 Ikon Pass.
Is that posted anywhere? I know I've seen Facebook posts in Ikon Pass groups about it, but wondering if they emailed everyone who didn't use their pass or if it's something you need to know about to get.
Several people say they have gotten emails from Ikon to this effect. Seems to be only for those who didn't use their pass at all. I read about Base Pass, didn't read far enough to see how higher level passes were handled. Here is a link to Mammoth Mountain Snowman search I did to find the thread:
facebook.com/groups/mammothmountainsnowman/search/?query=ikon&epa=SEARCH_BOX
facebook.com/groups/mammothmountainsnowman/search/?query=ikon&epa=SEARCH_BOX

(I guess I don't know how to live links. Just copy and paste the latter one.
 
Google found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/skiing/comment ... ay_credit/

I’d seen Facebook posts about Ikon passes used zero days rolling over, but you can’t believe everything somebody posts so I was looking for something on Ikon website. This looks like a copy of the email Ikon sent (copied from Snowman group):
D661542D-CB63-4EF3-80B8-37A67C3D87CE.jpeg


Now the people who only used their Ikon passes 1 or 2 days want a better deal than renewal discount.
 
Tony Crocker":140tz6xq said:
New Zealand has achieved internal eradication of COVID-19 with no new cases in 17 days.
That means even sports events and concerts with fans are OK.

Can Australia achieve this also?
New cases last exceeded 30 per day on April 19 and they are down to single digits now.

It's an interesting position we're in. Our state premier is today talking of opening the border to New Zealand prior to opening the border to our neighbouring state of New South Wales.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/queen ... 93749a3a47" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;"

This leaves me in a difficult position. Firstly our school holidays are in the last week of June/first week of July and the last week of September/first week of October. June/July is too early to reliably pre-commit to ski in Australia and New Zealand and September/October is too late for almost every hill with the exception of Mt Ruapehu which has about 1600 feet elevation advantage over most of the other hills. (Incidentally most of the Aussie and NZ resorts top out at about 6000 feet).
https://www.onthesnow.com/new-zealand/t ... esort.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;"

So I can either take my kids out of school for a few days and get three days skiing in at Thredbo/Perisher in New South Wales in August for reliable winter type conditions with a usually decent base or leave it until the September school holidays so we can have a bit of extra time on the north island of NZ. The problem is the tickets go on sale for Thredbo today and are expected to sell out fast as the resort can only operate at 50% capacity under regulations the state government has set out during this time of Covid.
 
I would be concerned about reduced capacity ticket rationing during peak season (February north, August south) in view of what happened at A-Basin May 27 - June 7.

I would opt for the spring Ruapehu option in sbooker's situation.
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Thredbo's website has crashed. Prior to that it had created a queue and the last time my wife checked it was at 22000. :)
This probably means we're flying to the land of the long white cloud in September.
In other news Japan has nominated tourists from Australia and NZ to be first to travel to their shores post Covid lockdown.
https://7news.com.au/travel/aussies-amo ... -c-1071849
Kind of topical because Niseko is on Mountain Collective. With any luck I may be in Hokkaido in January.
 
Sbooker":24ej61jt said:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Thredbo's website has crashed. Prior to that it had created a queue and the last time my wife checked it was at 22000. :)
Deja vu from A-Basin's website crashing when it first opened for reservations May 25. I have read (unconfirmed) that there were on the order of 7,000 entries for the 600 slots each day at A-Basin. Halfway through the opening, A-Basin passholders got a separate allocation, which resulted in my friend Paul being successful 2 out of 5 times after that.
Sbooker":24ej61jt said:
With any luck I may be in Hokkaido in January.
No surprise Liz and I endorse that idea based upon our 2016 trip, which has lots of TR's here.
 
Some more details on Liftopia (deleted Mountain Collective) being pushed into bankruptcy at https://skiing.substack.com/p/liftopia- ... plattekill and https://skiing.substack.com/p/accepting ... vised-debt

The first link says “Liftopia offered them as little as 20 cents on the dollar for the amounts owed” which pushed ski areas to force involuntary bankruptcy so they could see financials.

The second link includes “So have you spent our money on other things like rent and payroll and therefore it’s gone? Or is it stuck in a bank account frozen by your lender? Trying to understand what happened to our revenues, which to be clear, were never yours to begin with.”
 
Aspen Skiing Company is the managing member of the Mountain Collective pass. Liftopia is a payment processing interface, sort of like Stubhub, another company reputedly in distress.
 
Surprised to see from ads on snowbrains that Powderhorn is selling summer lift tickets on Liftopia and Caberfae (MI) is selling lift tickets on Liftopia for any date you select beginning today. Others selling through Liftopia include Pine Mountain, MI, who will sell you a season pass, and Mission Ridge, WA, who will let you buy $50 or $100 of Mountain Money for $50 or $100, respectively.
 
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