Ripped off.

On our last trip to Austria only 40% of the resorts lifts & pistes were open for the ten days we were there, the resort lift company did not see this a problem & continued to charge full price for the area lift pass.
I believe the lift company have a responsibility to offer value for money & should adjust lift pass pricing based on the amount of skiable piste on offer. I feel a little ripped off after spending just short of £600 on family lift passes to ski what amounted to 25km of skiable piste.

Finn

I agree in principal, but can understand why they wouldn't want to reduce, for example, week-long passes just because one day has poor condition, seems a bit impractical.

Plus, I guess technically from their point of view it's a lift pass, not a ski/snow pass. They don't care how you're coming down the hill, you just have to pay them to go up it!

Last year our lift passes were reduced at Les Saisies as Praz sur Arly and lower parts of Noredame De Bellecote were closed. This was at the later end of the season - 1st week in April.
There was still plenty of skiing so we thought we were pretty lucky.

Not sure if that's normal all over France though.

Lift passes are dear. I have to say it would not worry me if half the lifts were closed, as I rarely use more than two pistes at a resort. But things look a bit different to me as my skiing is the odd afternoon, when I am in Austria for other reasons.

I guess if 40% were closed it was not high season so passes in most resorts are alreay a bit cheaper, though not much. Probably if going before mid-Decebmer (or later in December in a bad snow year) it makes sense to pick a very high resort or glacier resort.

In Tirol there are three different pass cards which work all year, covering all or parts of Tirol. All are cheaper than a full year at a single resort. I think at least one can be bought by non-residents. But of course they are not good value for most people who are doing a single holiday in the year.

Dids1 wrote:Last year our lift passes were reduced at Les Saisies as Praz sur Arly and lower parts of Noredame De Bellecote were closed. This was at the later end of the season - 1st week in April.
There was still plenty of skiing so we thought we were pretty lucky.

Not sure if that's normal all over France though.

start and end of the season it's normal practice at many ski stations. That seems reasonable to me, they might reasonably expect those conditions at the start/end of the season, we skied over at Betternalp for 10 chf before Xmas for that reason. It's so normal that the lift company probably has less staff on, isn't able to run the snow canons and never planned to open some lifts so it's reasonable to make a reduction and passs some of their reduced cost on. Middle of the season though is another deal, it's the mountains and exceptional weather happens, you can't expect the lift company to take on that risk.

Some insurers will offer cover is a certain amount is closed but how it's calculated is difficult. For example I know for certain the original statement "only 40% of the resorts lifts & pistes were open" is obviously not strictly true, either 40% of the lifts were closed or 40% of the runs or 40% of one and some other percentage of the other which is neither here nor there for a normal person but important for the insurers )

It is the mountains in the end, not Disney or Alton Towers, sometimes some of the rides are going to be closed sadly :D ... although the rides are all open here today so I ought to go and try some...

Correction from original statement, only 30% of the resorts lifts were operating & 40% of the resort runs open during Xmas week high season. Ripped off.
Booked up for La Plange next season :D

Finn

... and if there is no snow there either you can expect only 40% of the runs to be open and no reduction in pricing, good luck ;)

I'd bet the reason they don't reduce the cost over Christmas is that people are there to ski and will buy a lift pass regardless.

Its not being ripped off, its just bad luck going somewhere where conditions were not as good as you hoped.
Insurance only covers you if you are unable to ski for a full day as a result of lift/pipste closures normally.

Lesson learned - go at a different time of the season, or go somewhere more snowsure?

I dont mean that nastily, by the way.