Tong Family

Whistler Lift Tickets and Season Passes. You need to an IRS tax attorney to understand the pricing structure at Whistler/Blackcomb. The big points are:

* Skiing is free if you are 6 or under. Cool!
* If you are a Washington or BC resident, you get an EDGE card. This gives you about a 20% discount off the rack rate. Moreover, you don’t have to go to the ticket lines, a credit card is tied to the EDGE card and you get charged when you hit the lifts. Very cool.
* Also, this gives you a $7 discount at Stevens Pass which is about the same as other offers I’ve seen.

For skiing at Crystal Mountain discounts are much more slender. Basically before December 31, 2005, you can get discount of 5% if you buy a book of five tickets. So not too exciting. At least you can get them at REIs, Sports Authorities, Fiorini’s and Sturtevants. Crystal by the way is quite expensive at $50 per day for rack rate and the pass is $940 so you need 10 days to break even.

With Summit at Snoqualmie, you can get a pass for $299 which means that at the $44 rack rate, you need to go 7 times to pay back.

Sun Peaks is a little more complicated. Season passes payback after 10 days, they also have a value card, but unlike the Whistler versions, they cost essentially $30 to buy but then you get but then you save about $7 per day, so it pays back in 4 days or so. It is also convenient in that you don’t have to stand in a lift line.