Season Pass Deals

Epic Pass vs Ikon Pass vs Indy Pass Deals

The season pass wars for the top ski passes continue to heat up, which leaves us all wondering which are the best season passes and whether we should buy an Epic Pass, Ikon Pass, Mountain Collective Pass or Indy Pass. Al of these discount lift ticket deals for a season pass offer savings for those who are likely to ski or snowboard for 7 or more days at their preferred resort, and massive savings for those who like to travel interstate or abroad and ski lots of days. The only downside for resorts participating in these season pass deals, particularly for the Epic Pass and Ikon Pass in the USA, is that the big discounts on the lift passes contribute more skier traffic to these already busy ski resorts. Good luck trying to find fresh powder after 10am at many US resorts, but in the valid European ski resorts the potential is still there for post lunch freshies without the lift lines!

You'll find a summary of which resorts are on the Ikon Pass and Epic Pass.

Epic Pass

On the surface, the Epic Pass seems to provide the biggest savings, but this is partly because the Vail Resorts have outrageously priced lift tickets if you buy them at the window on the day. And even if you buy them online well in advance, the day lift passes are still really expensive. So it doesn’t take many days for the Epic Pass to pay for itself, and it’s about 5 to 7 days depending on the resort/s you ski or ride at. Vail Resort itself has the most expensive day lift passes, so an Epic Pass will be paid off in what feels like a nano-second!

The Vail Resorts Epic Pass has multiple variants including a Locals Pass that has blackout dates for the peak holidays, and passes that only cover certain regions. There is also an Epic 7 Day Pass and Epic 4 Day Pass (days don’t need to be consecutive) that still provide savings versus the exorbitant prices you can pay for rocking up to the lift ticket window. And an Epic Pass Australia provides full access to Perisher in Australia, but has some restrictions for other resorts.

A full Epic Pass provides unlimited access to many resorts, whilst others are only for 5-7 days of skiing or snowboarding.

Epic Pass Australia

The Epic Pass Australia is targeted towards Australians who frequently ski/snowboard at Perisher, Mt Hotham and Falls Creek. The pass provides access to some, but not all of the resorts on the full Epic Pass, and during holiday periods there are some black out dates for Whistler and the US ski resorts. An Epic Australia Plus pass removes these blackout dates. The standard Epic Pass Australia provides 5 to 7 days lift access (for a possible total of 52-days free skiing) at a massive range of European ski resorts. See our Europe Multi-resort Lift Pass page to get detail on all that is available in Austria, Switzerland, France & Italy on Epic Pass.

Ikon Pass

The Ikon Pass joined the season pass deals competition. The Ikon Pass provides full access to many ski resorts, and up to 7 days of riding at a myriad of other resorts. The Ikon Base Pass is cheaper but is associated with more restrictions and less resorts. For the Alps, see the Europe Ikon Pass ski areas page for more information, whilst the Ikon Pass overview outlines all the ski resorts on the pass.

Mountain Collective

The Mountain Collective Pass offers 2 days at each of the Collective destinations for a total of 34 days, and then 50% off lift tickets for all additional days. A limited number of sales apply to the Mountain Collective Pass.

Indy Pass

The Indy Pass offers 2 days each at a huge number of North American ski areas, several European ski areas (including around Innsbruck Austria, Spain, Turkey, Czech, & Aosta Valley; see the Indy Europe ski areas page for more info), plus lots of Japanese ski resorts (see the Indy Japan ski areas page for more information). Add-on passes are available for those that have certain season passes.