Vail Resorts Launches 2023-24 Epic Passes, Confirms Shift to Mobile Pass

Prices tick up approximately 8% but remain below 2019-20 rates; No-interest payment plan returns; reservations to be required at Telluride; all partners return

Maybe you just came here for the prices. If so, here you go:

Not much of a price jump – around eight percent for the headline Epic and Epic Local passes. Those rates come in between the 2019-20 and 2018-19 price points (Vail dropped Epic Pass prices by 20 percent in 2021):

Oh, I have Military Epic too:

And the knockout Epic Day Pass:

Now go buy a pass. See you later.

But if you also want the full roster, with headline stats and access details for each resort, I have that as well:

Anything else of note in Vail’s 2023-24 Epic Pass suite? Indeed:

• Your phone just ate your Epic Pass: Next ski season, you will carry your Epic Pass on your smartphone, just like your credit card and your local newspaper and 90 percent of your brain. No more physical pass (unless you want one, or need one because you’re still rocking a flip phone or you’re 5-years-old). Instead, you will download the My Epic app (which replaces the Epic Mix app), put it in your pocket, and go skiing. Vail’s ticket scanners will sense the ticket via Bluetooth low-energy technology. Total reliance on thousands of individual phones in sub-freezing temperatures and remote mountain environments - what could go wrong?

• The My Epic app will also include: interactive trailmaps, real-time liftline wait times, personal tracking stats, account info (including blackout dates on your pass), grooming and snow reports, a direct line to Ski Patrol, snow cams, and resort charge linked to Epic Mountain Rewards discounts via barcode.

• A new ski area: As I reported last night, Disentis, Switzerland, which is lift-linked to Vail’s newest acquisition, Andermatt-Sedrun, is joining the Epic Pass as an unlimited partner for the 2023-24 ski season. Epic Local Pass holders will get five days to use within the sprawling Andermatt-Sedrun-Disentis megaplex, and top-tier Epic Day passes will also be valid at the resort.

• Reservations now required at Telluride: Telluride renewed its Epic Pass contract in October. This was likely a condition of that renewal (on Telluride’s part). No other Epic Pass partner will require reservations next ski season.

• The no-interest Epic Flex Pay payment plan is back: No interest. Are you reading this, Alterra?

• And so is all the other stuff that comes with your Epic Pass: Epic Mountain Rewards (20 percent off food, lodging, lessons, etc.), Epic Coverage (in case THE CONSPIRACY shutters resorts again or you get your moustache chopped off in a terrain park incident), and the stupid Buddy Tickets that I refuse to write about because no one who is reading this newsletter would ever pay $160-plus for one day of skiing unless it involved a helicopter.

Vail’s funny. Every time I get one of their press releases, I feel as though I just stumbled into a winter-themed version of Smurf Village. “We’d better Smurf over to the Smurf shop and Smurf some Smurfers with our Smurf bucks.” Only it’s “What an Eptacular day to Epic Introduce our new Epic Outhouse App, where you can get real-time Epic Relief Station Queue updates at our 41 Epic Mountain Resorts. You can even Epic Apply your 20 Percent Epic Mountain Rewards discount to our Paid Epic WC Stalls at Andermatt-Sedrun.”

Here's a bit more about Vail’s 2023-24 Epic Pass suite, and what the changes mean for passholders and the pass landscape at large: