Vail Resorts announce partial refund on passes

CBMR passholders to get 73% back if filed in time

[  By Mark Reamon  ]

Many Crested Butte Mountain Resort skiers will be eligible for a partial pass refund this spring. As one of the smallest resorts in the Vail Resorts portfolio, Broomfield executives announced this week that CBMR season passholders would be given a 73% refund for 2021-22 season pass prices. The refund can be applied to certain VR owned commodities next season.

The VR executives decided to start with CBMR since it made up less than 2% of the income generated through season pass sales but is one of its fastest growing resorts. 

The idea as explained in a press release, is that given employee struggles experienced throughout the season, combined with lift issues and the fact passholders were forced to actually walk to some of the ski runs early in the season, a refund was only appropriate. The refund would apply to anyone who used an Epic Local pass in Crested Butte during any Monday before 8 a.m. this season. The Big Brother pass tracker will determine those who are eligible but then each passholder must submit a written request that needs to be received by Vail’s Bangladesh HQ before Thursday morning at 6:45. The savings cannot only be applied to future pass sales but can be redeemed for food credits at participating VR restaurants.

“We’re not saying we agree with that Rubbing guy from Stephen’s Point or that copycat guy from CB who has like 10 signatures on his online petition, but maybe they aren’t 100% wrong either. We do suck, especially this year,” commented VR CEO Krissy Pinch. “But we’ve raised the pay of workers who don’t want to come back and dangled the idea of taking the county’s affordable housing houses for our workers in a master lease so I think we can refund a portion of the CBMR sales pass prices. After extensive analysis that involved this weekend’s basketball scores, we settled on the 73% refund.”

VR made clear the refund was an experiment but that if successful in generating goodwill with the locals, they might take the concept to other resorts. “But not Stephen’s Point because the guy who lives there that isn’t 100% wrong is on our sh*t list. That’s just the way it is,” added Pinch. “I consulted with my mentor, Rob Cats and he agreed with that decision but did say he was pissed about not having luck finding a parking spot for his Mercedes Tesla hybrid at any resort even though free parking came with his retirement package. That’s just another indication of the suck factor. But we’re working on it.”