VailEpicFail – NorthStar California Sucks

“Vail Resorts misses revenue growth expectations”

Vail is struggling to sell Wall Street investors on its business plan as bad publicity, declining skier visits and strategic errors eat into its bottom line.

Vail Resorts disappointed Wall Street investors again with its most recent financial update.

The Broomfield-based ski resort giant missed analysts’ expectations for revenue growth, and sold fewer ski passes than anticipated, the company reported in its fourth-quarter update. Sales of its signature Epic Pass were down 3 percent for the upcoming winter sports season, though price increases helped to offset lost sales.

“I want to start by acknowledging that results from the past season were below expectations, and our season-to-date pass sales growth has been limited,” CEO Rob Katz said during a conference call for investors on Tuesday. “At the heart of our underperformance is that the way we are connecting with guests has not kept pace with the rapidly evolving consumer landscape.”

Vail is struggling to sell Wall Street investors on its business plan as bad publicity, declining skier visits and strategic errors eat into its bottom line. Katz, known for introducing the Epic Pass in 2008, stepped back into the CEO role in May after taking a different management role for several years. During his absence, the company’s stock price lost more than half its value.

In its recent quarterly update, Vail said its traditional reliance on email as a tool to communicate with customers isn’t as effective anymore.

“We’ve been slow to shift to new and emerging market channels,” Katz said.

Additionally, the company plans to refocus on selling individual lift tickets instead of pouring all its resources into Epic Pass sales.

“Looking ahead … we will be evaluating all aspects of our pass portfolio, including the product offering, pricing and benefit in conjunction with our lift ticket products,” Katz said.

The company will analyze its pricing strategy for different products at different resorts at different times of year to figure out the best way to sell them, Katz said.

Source: https://www.cpr.org/2025/09/30/vail-resorts-misses-revenue-growth-expectations/

I Paid for Family Passes. Vail Made Them Unusable. How to Turn a Ski Day Into a Support Ticket

I didn’t expect buying ski passes for my family to turn into a software obstacle course, but here we are. Northstar/Vail’s “Mobile Pass” is an utter and complete piece of crap.

The whole point of a mobile pass is simple: I buy passes for family members → I share them → we go skiing. That’s it. Not “install an app, create an account, fight a broken UI, and then call support because it can’t find the pass you literally just paid for.”

Here’s the reality of the “share pass” experience:

The “Share Pass” Flow From Hell

I try the app’s brilliant idea: “Share pass via text message.” Sounds easy, right?

Nope.

The person receiving the text has to:

Download the app
Create a profile
Find the “Find Pass” option
Enter the pass number (or the order number)
Get slapped with: “Unable to find the account. Call support.”

So let me get this straight: I paid real money, for real passes, for real people… and your “sharing” feature ends with “call support” like it’s 2009?

That’s not a feature. That’s a bug with marketing copy.

This Isn’t “Premium.” It’s Amateur Hour.

Vail loves charging “premium” prices while shipping “free trial” software. If your pass system can’t reliably associate a purchased pass with the person it’s intended for, then the system is broken—full stop.

And yes, I’m going to say it plainly: this app feels like it was built by the lowest bidder and never properly tested in the real world. Not tested with families. Not tested with normal humans. Not tested with the most basic scenario: “I bought multiple passes and need to distribute them.”

Vail, Fix Your Garbage.

F**k you, Vail. F**k you very much.

You’re a public company. Act like one. Because right now this feels like textbook mismanagement from a company in decline (MTN: roughly ~-50% over 5 years).

Stop hiding behind shiny branding while your customers waste time troubleshooting your junk. When people are trying to get their kids out the door in the morning, nobody wants to play “guess which number the app will reject today.”

What You Should Do (The Obvious Fixes)

Here are a few wild ideas from planet Earth:

Let me assign each pass to a person at checkout (name + DOB + email/phone).
Let me share a pass with a single tap using a real invite link that actually works.
Let family members accept the pass without needing a scavenger hunt inside the app.
Provide a working fallback: printable QR code, Apple Wallet / Google Wallet, or even a web portal that doesn’t suck.

Because right now the “Mobile Pass” isn’t mobile. It’s not a pass. It’s barely software.

Vail: fix your crappy app. And stop treating customers like unpaid QA testers.

Corporate greed at it’s height

I have been a customer of Vail for 15+ years.
We have spent close to a hundred K over that time as a customer getting Epic passes every season for our whole family, using their ski schools etc.
I lost my job and per to the refund policy I am allowed to get this seasons passes refunded.

But they have a 30 day loophole that prevents you from getting the refund.
The insurance company sends you to Epic. Epic says they have no control and send you back to the insurance company.

An absolutely DISGUSTING way to treat long term valuable customers and spread ill will about their company. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Sep 2024 • Family, Luke H – via TripAdvisor

The lack of empathy and understanding for individuals dealing with significant injuries is deeply disheartening.

During our last skiing trip to Whistler in January, my wife suffered an ACL injury, and I underwent shoulder reconstruction surgery in June of this year. As a result, I did not regularly check my email account that was used for holiday booking, I was auto-charged for the EPIC Pass for next year.

Given these circumstances, it is impossible for us to ski for the foreseeable future. Despite reaching out to the company 4-5 times over the past few months to explain our situation and requesting the cancellation of my EPIC Pass and a refund, the company’s response has been disappointing. The lack of empathy and understanding for individuals dealing with significant injuries is deeply disheartening.

Instead, they informed me that they will proceed with charging my credit card next month for the passes for me, my wife, and my children, citing the fine print in the contract.

Knowing that my wife and I are injured, the company’s lack of compassion and understanding of the stress we are going through is both immoral and unethical. We will never ski at any of the Vail Resort-operated locations again in the future.

T.L. (SoMa, San Francisco, CA) via Yelp reviews

“Weekday Zoo at NorthStar”

Pretty much a wrecked ski/snowboard experience by Vail Resorts as they have done with other properties.

Oversold cheap season passes mean the lift lines are jam packed, low staffing with poor service, and no real snow making or grooming mean only 20-30% of the hill is open.

You’ll be in line 30-40min for each lift, and that’s MID-WEEK. Weekends are a disaster and you’ll see consistent 45-60min lift lines.

Look at other independent ski resorts if you want to actually enjoy your day. The mass-market approach that has been implemented at Northstar isn’t worth the time or money unless you like standing around in lines all day.

“Weekday zoo at Northstar”

“Basically a mosh pit to get on the lifts. Mid-week photo…weekends are worse.”
A. M. Menlo Park, CA via Yelp

“Northstar is totally not worth your time. Overrated and overpriced.”

This review is targeted at skiers/snowboarders. While the location of the resort is very picturesque and the main village itself is cozy and nice to relax at, overall Northstar is totally not worth your time. Here’s why. For starters, the runs are not overwhelmingly great. Blacks feel like blues, blues feel like greens, and greens are cakewalks. The runs do not offer much of a challenge for the experienced skier/snowboarder. The only thing the mountain does particularly well is provide good trees to ride through. However, many people don’t stick to doing that the whole time and spend a large portion of their time on main runs—which to say are busy…is an extreme understatement. Every run seems to be filled with everyone from experienced riders to people who take up the entire run performing an s-turn. Secondly, the resort gets more and more crowded each year. Don’t get me wrong, when I first came here I was looking forward to going on many runs and having a great time with the people I was with. Suffice to say, the majority of the memories I have from that trip were sitting in line waiting for lifts. Do NOT expect to come here and not deal with huge lines. It’s simply unavoidable. The resort just doesn’t have the capacity to deal with the crowds it attracts. Third, the customer service of the workers at the resort is awful. I try to have sympathy for them, maybe it’s just the fact that they are being overworked because of the sheer number of people at Northstar each day. But at the end of the day, their service still isn’t good and they consistently seem to have negative attitudes. Finally, and arguably most importantly, everything is so so overpriced. And I mean EVERYTHING. From food to apparel to lift tickets. On top of having to deal with crowds both on lifts and on the runs, poor customer support, and generally underwhelming runs, you’re having to pay up to twice as much for a lift ticket or pass as you would at another resort. Overall, if you can go to another resort, just go. Northstar is overrated and overpriced.
Nick Petersen via Google reviews

Heavenly Lines

This was the end of day download line at Heavenly’s California Lodge yesterday (1/4) at 4pm. Gondola & Stagecoach lifts are closed, Gunbarrel & Roundabout trails are closed, so Gunbarrel chair & Tram lift are the ONLY way off the mountain…took nearly 2 hours of standing to get through this line, no employees in sight to assist. Bring your hand warmers, you’ll need them, and leave the powder board/skis at home…rocks are EVERYWHERE.
u/AirVaporSystems via Reddit

200 bucks a day to stand around. If you’re lucky…Heavenly said they’ll arbitrarily STOP UPLOADING at any point today to control capacity. $200 Tix + $20 Parking just to be told you CAN’T go up the lift
AirVaporSystems via Reddit

Heavenly: “Many snowboarders are dangerously aggressive.”

Yesterday, while skiing Heavenlys’ Ridge Run (a beginners run), I was suddenly hit violently from behind in the middle of my back by the forearm of a speeding out of control snowboarder, slamming me to the ground, popping me out of both skis, and scattering my equipment. From the force of the impact, and the distance he slid downhill before coming to a stop…about 25 yards… I would guess he was doing at least 20+ miles an hour when he hit me. On a beginners run! Full of people because it was one of the few runs open for lack of snow. A quick “Sorry!” and off he went.

Two following skiers, who helped me gather my equipment, told me he had almost taken them out a bit further up the hill.

No Safety Officer or Ski Patrol in sight.

Heavenly needs to get a better handle on its’ snowboarders. Many are dangerously aggressive. Riding way above their limited ability, frequently in groups of 3 or 4, catching air off every little bump, spraying snow on skiers for fun, then bragging about it. (I have personally witnessed and been a victim of this). Using skiers as slalom gates. (From the trailing skiers description, that’s probably what this guy was doing and just wasn’t good enough to pull it off). I see these behaviors all the time. These jerks are dangerous…my case a good example. I survived with only a sore back, but these reckless boarders need to have their passes revoked permanently.

This crash ended my day. And my desire to ever ski “Heavenly” again. It’s the third time I have been hit by a snowboarder at this resort.

And yes, I reported the incident to the Ski Patrol Office at the bottom of the hill. On my way…out of “Heavenly”.
Thomas R via TripAdvisor

Heavenly: “Idiots running the show”

Ok I’ve been here before and it’s exceptional. Today we found that the iconic gondola was shut down. For how long? Nobody knows. It’s there infinite wisdom the Heavenly Valley intellectual juggernaut’s decided to cram everyone onto the California lodge lift. At the same time the two other lodges are closed and leaving the innate idiots that run this place to keep everyone jammed into the California lodge. This created a logjam and over 4 hour wait to get off the mountain by unfortunate patrons. Got a heart attack, broken leg or massive bled well we will get you down after we let our own employees down first. This is a perfect example of people in positions they should not be in. Having an alternative plan, alerting the public or Just using common. Sense. Perhaps these are the same fools discharged from the state department that led our glorious evacuation from Afghanistan? Either way I’m sure the trail lawyers awaited at the bottom with their salivary glands in full effect
Jim M via TripAdvisor

Visited Tahoe for the holidays and unfortunately there wasn’t much snow. You would expect reduced rates under such poor skiing conditions but instead the prices at Heavenly were outrageous. $200 for 1/2 day lift ticket, $800 for a private lesson… Fortunately I found other mountains with similar conditions and great views at much lower prices.
David B via TripAdvisor

Absolutely poor customer service. Ski resort announced opening on 17 Nov, only to delay it opening to after our trip. No refunds, poor communication. We also only found out upon arrival to Tahoe with no email notification.
Stay01608001420 via TripAdvisor

I wanted to like the experience of Heavenly, but the skiing was way too crowded especially during the weekends. It’s never fun to be at risk of bumping to a skier and have to wait until going down an entire run. On the plus side, the snow wasn’t bad and the scenery of seeing Lake Tahoe was beautiful.
Noah W via TripAdvisor

Heavenly is a corporate resort that regards skiers as profit centers while their real customers are Wall Street analysts. For spring skiing they have reduced lifts and grooming to a bare minimum. Sky lift is the one that reaches the highest altitude so it has mid year weekend lines. The trouble is this means 2 non heavy slush runs max vs 6-10 runs in winter. Grooming has been cut to almost nothing. I observed far more corduroy at Diamond Peak and Mt Rose. This made my decision on renewal for me as Northstar parking and crowds make that resort a no go. I would have renewed if spring skiing was even an average experience. By the way thanks for eliminating the ski carts at NS which has one of The most onerous walks in NA. We figure the green eye shades saved 20-25 cents per Skier visit on that one.
Willy K via TripAdvisor

I am a season pass holder with the Tahoe Local Pass. The experience here is truly disappointing. I went on a low traffic day (Monday) and the the experience really sucked. The only thing decent was the grooming. Vail resorts is run strictly by Wall Street guys and pointy pencil bean counters interested only in the bottom line. To this end they sent all of their low paid J1 visa employees packing on 3/31/23 and now they are running with a skeleton crew of locals. At least two key lifts are closed and the lines (Sky and Dipper) on a Monday were crazy at 10-15 minutes per ride. Vail resorts are the kings of no-customer service. As a long time pass holder, Vail resorts may have crossed the line for me NOT to renew my pass for the 23-24 season.
Michael A via TripAdvisor

“Expect to be treated as a wallet and not as a customer”

Overall you won’t get what you paid for and it will often be disappointing. Generally this is my least favorite Tahoe destination. This resort is nice in appearance but is overall poorly run. Expect to be treated as a wallet and not as a customer. New and temporary staff generally are not helpful, veterans are generally ambivalent. Staff can also be hostile and aggressive as well which is generally a sign of problems within management. I understand visitors can also be difficult and the staff will certainly make you’re aware as they voice their complaints.
Blaine Schanfeldt via reviews at Google