Save Money on Your Next Ski Trip

Britney and I have been contemplating taking a winter vacation and have discussed the possibility of going skiing. Sure, we could go skiing close to home in the mountains of West Virginia or North Carolina - but if you've ever been skiing out west, you pretty much ruin any chance of enjoying a NC or WV ski trip ever again. It's just not the same - huge mountains with natural snow and scenic beauty vs. snow guns blowing ice in your face as you dodge the other 2000 people that are there.

Ski trips, however, are expensive. Flights to your destination and lodging are both expensive this time of year. Then, once you're there, you have to rent skis (unless you have your own) and buy lift tickets (which are expensive almost everywhere). I have, however, found a couple of ways to make our next ski trip less expensive and I thought I'd share them with you.

Liftopia.com is a site that offers discounted lift tickets at a number of east and west coast resorts. The premise is pretty simple - you buy the lift tickets in advance with a no refund policy (locking in revenue for the mountain) and in exchange, they'll give you a better price. Some of the bigger resorts (Vail, Aspen, etc.) have no need to discount their tickets since they'll be crowded anyway but if you're willing to ski at a smaller resort (Arapahoe Basin, Copper, etc.), this looks like a good way to save.

Skicoupons.com advertises itself as a site for discounted lift tickets as well. I honestly didn't find much here in the way of discounted lift tickets though. What I did find, however, were links to local retailers in the area for each resort and those links had discounts for ski rentals, accomodations, etc. In a quick 5 minute search, I found several places offering 20-40% discounts on ski rentals at each of the resorts I was considering. Not too shabby!

My final recommendation - and this one can really save you big $$$ - is to use Ebay. Go to Ebay, type in the name of the resort you're visiting, and see what comes up. Most of the time I find big discounts here. People buy multi-day tickets and don't use up the whole thing so they sell off the remainder. Sometimes people get discount vouchers when something goes wrong but they're not going back anytime soon so they sell the voucher. You name it - all kinds of discounts can be had on Ebay.

Skiing is a sport that's kind of like golf - it's expensive no matter how you do it. There are, however, ways to make it more affordable if you're willing to do a little looking around. Never, ever pay full price for lift tickets by buying them at the slopes. Ask the locals where to buy them off site (I've bought them from gas stations in the area before). Shop around on ski rentals - prices vary widely. Skiing affordably is hard - but it CAN be done! Enjoy!