Contents
The Offer
- Alaska Airlines has a new ski free promotion. Each resort is slightly different, some offer a free day on your day of arrival whereas other resorts offer a free day the day of your departure. The following are participating resorts:
- Alyeska Resort.
- Big White Ski Resort
- Bogus Basin
- Eaglecrest Ski Area
- Mt. Bachelor
- Red Lodge Mountain
- RED Mountain Resort
- Schweitzer Mountain Resort
- Ski Marmot Basin
- Squaw Valley/Alpine Meadows
- Steamboat Ski & Resort
- Whitefish Mountain Resort
Our Verdict
Probably not going to be able to do much skiing on your day of arrival/departure anyway but still might be useful if you were planning on flying Alaska anyway.
some of these resorts (like Steamboat) offer night skiing which – for those who can deal with that – may be a way to get a little extra value. this would seem like it works best for those who a) don’t have a season or IKON pass and b) are staying for a short enough time that a couple of extra hours on what might have been a travel day is additive to the experience.
i think most people if they are flying into a high alt resort area are better off getting lots of water and rest on their arrival day to avoid any altitude issues rather than hitting it hard. although i’ll admit to having caught 6am flights and hitting Lionshead at Vail by 2pm and getting in 10,000 feet before they turned off the gondola….
This is more lucrative if a points booking is allowed. Maybe you could fly halfway there with a layover the night before and arrive early in the morning to take advantage of a full day.
paying for a hotel layover night takes away some of the value.
I know Alpine Meadows/Squaw will do this already with any airline…doesn’t have to be Alaska. I took advantage of this over Christmas when my IKON pass was blacked out with a Southwest boarding pass.
I took advantage of a similar promo many years ago at Squaw and it was surprisingly useful. With the time difference going from the east to west coast, and even stopping for lunch on my way to Squaw, I still got a decent amount of time on the mountain. I also don’t snowboard often (I sometimes have gaps of years between trips) so it was nice having a freebie day of a few hours to get over all of my jitters and get comfortable on the mountain.
What do you think the take up rate on this offer will be? IMO this is a completely useless “benefit”. Flights there are usually going to be crossing multiple time zones, so you’ll be jet lagged. Flights departing are usually days you don’t want to gamble with and want to make sure you’ll arrive plenty early so you don’t miss your flight. Those take up rates must be baked into this offer.
If you can get a cheap flight, might be worth it to book a throw away on some cases…lift tickets can be more than flights.
yea kind of a weird promotion, i could see it being valid for, say a day or two, before/after either one