Crystal Mountain Becomes Alterra

[Buster Highmen]

I was that guy calling to complain about the way they are prioritizing reservations. Their response was basically acknowledging it was a shitty situation and that the solution was to increase the amount of Ikon reservations allowed each day. I think that is a good idea but the real solution would be to not sell day tickets when passholder reservations are full.

They also said that Ikon (Alterra) was setting the reservation quotas and not Crystal Mountain. I don't see the distinction between the two but maybe I just don't get it.

The distinction is bullshit.

Class action lawsuit people. Alterra should only sell the number of seasons passes they can afford to support.

Making shit up along the way, after they have our money is fraud.

[Buster Highmen]

Template for a letter to your congress people:

Representative,

Alterra Corporation bought Crystal Mountain near Enumclaw, Washington ski area a little over a year ago..

Since then, they have been selling more tickets than the area can support.

I mailed and messaged you about this last year, akin to managing a stadium that can accommodate 70,000 people built with public funds, then selling 150,000 tickets.

This year, when COVID-19 is a national health issue, they continued to sell an unlimited number of unlimited passes. By an unlimited pass, it's meant that the pass can be used any time the area is operational.

Out of the blue, they implemented a COVID management plan to require reservations to use the area. There are not enough reservations for each passholder on weekend days.
This is a breach of contract while leveraging USFS leases to public land, since the unlimited passes sold are now limited in use by the reservation system.

Moreover, Alterra are now selling single day passes, passes good for one day, on days when there are no reservations available for unlimited pass holders.

Alterra Corporation is in breach of the Public Trust by selling more passes than the area can accommodate, not to mention the thousands of contracts for each of the passes sold.

Please help defend your constituents against this abuse of the Public Trust and continuing ant-Trust behavior..

[PNWbrit]

The distinction is bullshit.

Class action lawsuit people. Alterra should only sell the number of seasons passes they can afford to support.

Making shit up along the way, after they have our money is fraud.

There is almost certainly an arbitration clause in the season pass contract which makes any class action extremely difficult. Basically until sufficient arbitrations have been requested by disgruntled pass holders to make the cost of defending them prohibitive Alterra won't waive that clause. It's something that some plaintiff firms are starting to do given the proliferation of these clauses, getting over this hurdle is a big risk though since it requires $$$ even more up front than usual.

There is litigation going on at the moment by a putative class of Airbnb hosts regarding a similar Covid-19 situation. It only managed to get around their arbitration clause so far because Airbnb failed to pay arbitration fees by a set deadline. Apparently it's still on shaky ground though.

[Buster Highmen]

There is almost certainly an arbitration clause in the season pass contract which makes any class action extremely difficult. Basically until sufficient arbitrations have been requested by disgruntled pass holders to make the cost of defending them prohibitive Alterra won't waive that clause. It's something that some plaintiff firms are starting to do given the proliferation of these clauses, getting over this hurdle is a big risk though since it requires $$$ even more up front than usual.

There is litigation going on at the moment by a putative class of Airbnb hosts regarding a similar Covid-19 situation. It only managed to get around their arbitration clause so far because Airbnb failed to pay arbitration fees by a set deadline. Apparently it's still on shaky ground though.

That may be true for most seasons passes.
I doubt the Founders have any such clause.

In any case, people should be writing their representatives. This is bullshit on so many levels.

[PNWbrit]

I doubt the Founders have any such clause.

Do you know how many founders passes there are floating around? Probably not a big enough class to make the economics work is my guess.

There might be some hidden new wording slid in any renewal process that took place this year, or previous years that would have overridden by your consent any original founders agreement with Boyne.

I tried briefly to get a copy of the contract from them when the shutdown or reservation system came into effect... They were very shifty about it. I kinda lost interest in chasing. Be interesting to hear what they said about such an enquiry now.

[PNWbrit]

I asked for DeBerry's email, and they said to use the general customer service email (gservice@skicrystal.com). I wonder how many will actually get through.

outofhisdepth@crystal.com?

[PNW_Skier206]

Yeah this is totally fucked. Not sure what to do other than write 1,000 emails.


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[Stairmaster]

I would be interested to see what happens if you ski without a reservation. Will your pass not scan? Will they pull your pass for the season. If you read Crystals instagram they are suggesting pass holders ride on weekdays when demand is lower. All I want to do is ski.

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[powder_to_the_people]

Yeah this is totally fucked. Not sure what to do other than write 1,000 emails.


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Wouldn't twitter get more traction with the (larger) group of people that ski Crystal, are pissed off with Alterra, but don't hang out on the TGR forums?

[oftpiste]

All I want to do is ski whenever I want to without a reservation as the word 'unlimited' implies

FIFY

[oftpiste]

Spot on old thing. You think maybe they calculated that timing knowing exactly what would happen? LOL. Or not.

I went yesterday. Skiing was good, 35% capacity (or whatever it is) makes lines short and will make weekends more bearable if you can get a res. They were enforcing masks in line and distancing.

Also noticed something interesting in the res system: got home, went to add a new reservation to replace the one used and noticed the used one was still on the list of reservations. We were able to cancel that one (even though we'd used it) and replace it with another to keep the max at 10 as allowed.

'Pass stats' showed the day as used, but scanning the pass on the day reserved apparently didn't remove that res from the system.

We also tried to duplicate the prior reports that day tix were available online when pass holders reservations were not. We could not find this to be the case.

Yes anyone with a season pass is getting hosed on the reservations for day ticket purchases, but those of us with full parking passes are getting double-shafted. I don't remember getting a prorated refund from last year when they closed early, and already this year I can't reserve a lot of Saturdays so the utility is roughly halved.
Had I known, maybe I would have just gone with the midweek pass but of course that option was created AFTER everyone had to commit to a full parking pass.

[jayx]

Offering day tickets (or afternoon tickets) to the public when "unlimited pass holders" aren't able to make reservations is bullshit... Got my pitchfork ready

They should have just had a certain number of reservations per day, and on the same day before the season starts, Ikon Passholders, local passholders, and day ticket purchasers could make reservations, with the caveat that day ticket purchasers had to purchase a non-refundable ticket to secure their reservation. Not only is this fair by giving everybody an equal chance at any particular day, but I guarantee that the vast, vast majority of reservations would have been taken by passholders.

I get reservations, but I don't get how passholders can't make reservations on days when people can still buy day tickets. If Alterra needs more revenue from Crystal beyond what season passes sell for, they should raise the prices of season passes! And if raising the prices doesn't adequately lower demand and help alleviate crowding, they should stop selling season passes once they're reached some limit. It's not rocket science.

[neutrinoone]

Can someone post the reservation calendar? What is the next weekend date available?

[neutrinoone]

ahh I am still on the fence about renewing my Ikon so I don't have access to the reservations page. Wanted to see what was available to book b4 purchase...

[The AD]

There is one positive to the reservation system and that it that it encourages the mountains to open more terrain. More terrain = more skiers allowed and more revenue for them.

[powder_to_the_people]

Any intel on the parking situation at Crystal today? Trying to figure out how early I should leave tomorrow morning...

[Toadman]

There is one positive to the reservation system and that it that it encourages the mountains to open more terrain. More terrain = more skiers allowed and more revenue for them.

I can see the opposite happening. Reservation system may result in opening up less terrain to save money.

[XavierD]

Any intel on the parking situation at Crystal today? Trying to figure out how early I should leave tomorrow morning...

Lots of open spots in A lot, the rest were pretty full. I got there at noon and found a spot, but clearly had filled up all but F lot,

Edit: just tried to book another day and every Saturday in January Is completely booked. Fucking bullshit.

[oftpiste]

Dweebus excitedly announced last night that local pass holders no longer need reservations. Their reasoning is that those passes are not valid on weekends and weekday demand is lower.

I suggested to them that they should extend the same courtesy on weekdays to IKON holders who bought their 'unlimited' passes long before local passes were announced.

Some local [weekday only] passes include A-lot parking, though those passes weren't announced until after the deadline for parking pass purchase, so folks that bought the expensive and unlimited version of the parking pass are not being looked after on that level either.

Truth is probably that they - as before - massively oversold IKONs out of dweebus, and didn't sell too many local passes so it was the low hanging fruit to make themselves look good. Gotta think most locals had bought their IKONs log before locals were made available anyway.

Not terribly stolked on how they're doing this.

[Dromond]

Dweebus excitedly announced last night that local pass holders no longer need reservations. Their reasoning is that those passes are not valid on weekends and weekday demand is lower.

Wow..... sell two passes with unlimited skiing on midweek days and then partway through the season decide to limit only one of them via reservations.

[Dromond]

Any intel on the parking situation at Crystal today? Trying to figure out how early I should leave tomorrow morning...

FWIW we arrived at 8:15 On Saturday and got a pretty good spot in B-lot.

[oftpiste]

Wow..... sell two passes with unlimited skiing on midweek days and then partway through the season decide to limit only one of them via reservations.

right? fuckers.

[PNWbrit]

[oftpiste]

was just about to post this.

Sounds like your pass will scan if you don't have a reservation! "You could lose your privileges" - get fucked Alterra

Need Alta snob to see if this is even legal. I'm having a hard time finding my paperwork I signed when I bought my UNLIMITED not LIMTED RESERVATION season pass.

Attachment 349415

[ptavv]

My guess is that Crystal never planned / doesn't want to have this reservation system at all but one of Alterra's lawyers has told them that they have to have a way to "manage capacity" to stay within the bounds of the state COVID mitigation efforts. Given that any pass user who went up without a reservation could say the system glitched, they thought they had a reservation, they went, and nothing seemed unusual to them; I doubt Crystal will actually enforce this at all. Particularly without some sort of warning system in place first.

I imagine there are still pass holders out there who've gone up (or plan to) who are unaware of the whole reservation system at all.