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Thredbo Season Pass holders wait for clarity on discounts

snow action team 01.06.2020

Thredbo Season Pass holders are waiting for full pricing and to be released. Until then they can’t calculate the actual value they will get from the substitute discount day pass option.

All Season Pass Holders have been offered via email the choice of refunds or no time limit credits to their account (365 pass holders with a $50 deduction for summer usage).

Still waiting for full pricing and discount details at Thredbo for 2020 © Snow Action

Then for the new 2020 COVID-19 season limited day pass sales the advice so far is:

As a valued Season Pass holder you are eligible for a discount on the 1 Day Lift Pass rate of up to 75% off*.  
All guests will need to pre-purchase day lift passes online prior to arrival.

At 75% off, with a $10 day pass increase already envisaged in earlier advice, that leaves $35 a day.

So 10 days skiing for $350 sounds great right? Especially for the Sydney type Thredbo Season Pass holder who can mostly only go for weekends, with 4 – 5 weekends and maybe a holidays or other midweek or extended weekends.

Sounds great indeed. But note “up to 75% off*”

Asterisk.

Will it be 50% off Peak Season? Less? Will weekends be even less discount?

What the seasonal rates and weekend differentials for discounts will be won’t be available until released.

Hopefully that is well before the on-sale date for tickets of one minute to midnight on June 10, because the more attractive they are the more people will want to pile on and lock in those peak season dates.

If you can get some dates you want for the 10 – 15 days a season skier switching out a season pass for day tickets could well end up saving you money. But that will be little comfort whenever some serious snow dumps happen and you just get the urge to go. Now.

So you can’t really make a fair estimate how it will work for your situation, and whether it is worth it or it’s time to consider alternatives for this winter, until then.

Locals who like to go hard for a couple of hours before work will be the most affected by the no-Season-Pass-season © Snow Action

Locals who ski nearly every day are the biggest losers.

That includes the handful of leisured/retired/otherwise idle rich, who ski every day just because they can.

No doubt they won’t be getting much sympathy for their plight from the millions who have lost jobs/businesses from the COVID-19 crisis response. But many more, especially local workers/business owners who normally scoot out for a quick morning session nearly every day, will lose out big time. As one put it to us, “My riding works out about $5 a day over the season usually. I’m out early and out of there when it gets busy most days.”

More (as yet unspecified) further discounts are envisaged once a Thredbo Season Pass holder clocks up 10, then 15, then 20 days etc.

Say with all of that you got it down to $25 a day and did 60 days, that’s still $1,500. A big ask. Even for the idle rich.

At least locals have their accommodation sorted.

For the rest of us, it’s the reverse of the normal situation. You have to decide in advance – far in advance most likely for August and weekends all main season – when you want to ski, try and buy the tickets for those dates, then sort some accommodation.

Instead of grabbing whatever earlybird discounts on accommodation you can and just rock up and ski.

For occasional skiers planning the odd weekend the same applies.

For lodge and apartment owners/managers it makes planning and budgeting a lottery. Take a booking, guests can’t get tickets, have to refund .. or not.

Other Thredbo programs all to be refunded

All pre-booked Thredbo programs will be refunded – including those for season programs/academy stuff which understandably just can’t happen this year.

Here are the details (latest on the Thredbo COVID-19 update site link)

We are refunding all winter 2020 product purchased prior to 19 May 2020, including:

  • Lift passes
  • All group lessons
  • Seasonal Programs and Mountain Academy
  • Race training programs
  • Rental equipment
  • Flexibility insurance

We understand this is an inconvenience but this is an important step required to allow us to operate within the revised operating model, with a new product range and associated terms and conditions.

All guests eligible for refunds or credits will be emailed by Thursday 4 June with full details.

Meanwhile NSW Tourism have just launched a big ad campaign, which of course features the Snowy Mountains ski fields.

We had a look this morning, clicked through and found lifts are firing up on the LWE as per the screen save below. No one has bothered to update the generic information, so hopefully no one sees this and goes up there oblivious to find themselves locked out of KNP over the LWE.