West Virginia’s Snowshoe Mountain Resort began selling a “Ridiculous Pass” this morning, but with the resort’s web site and telephone lines seizing up under high demand, hundreds of potential customers found themselves staring at a broken web page in frustration, unable to purchase the pass.
Snowshoe is running a 10-day sale on the 2015-2016 season pass between February 17-26, 2015. The first 2,500 passes are being offered for $209, with the next 5,000 passes being sold for $219. After that, the price rises to $229 until February 26, going to $329 after the sale. In addition to being valid for the 2015-2016 winter season, the pass will be good from March 1, 2015 through the end of this season.
On Tuesday morning, Snowshoe’s Facebook page was littered with angry posts from customers unable to purchase the pass, either via Snowshoe’s web site or over the phone. DCSki readers reported an inability to complete the purchase steps on-line, and experienced busy signals when trying to call the resort.
“With the pass being so popular, we are experiencing a lot of traffic to our website,” noted the resort. “Please be patient as you move through the booking this morning.”
That may come as little consolation to customers who attempted to purchase the pass at the beginning of the sale, hoping to buy one of the first 2,500 passes at the lowest pricing tier. Rather than being pleased with the competitive pricing, many skiers and snowboarders are turning to social media to express their frustration and anger with the purchasing process.
M. Scott Smith is the founder and Editor of DCSki. Scott loves outdoor activities such as camping, hiking, kayaking, skiing, and mountain biking. He is an avid photographer and writer.
Thanks for the article, Scott. It will be interesting to see how Snowshoe addresses (publicly and in-house) their failure to anticipate the incredible volume of sales they could expect. As a fence-sitter who eventually decided to buy the pass this year (and had done so once in the past but not last year), the experience was downright discouraging and may lead me elsewhere.
By the way, you misquoted Snowshoe's (so far) response. They didn't post: “With the pass being so popular, we are experiencing a lot of traffic to our website. Please be patient as you move through the booking this morning.”
Instead, they posted: “With the pass being so popular, we are experiencing a lot of traffic to our website. Please be patience as you move through the booking this morning.” Yes, a simple error. I make plenty. But are we looking at a simple error or a reflection of the casual way in which customer service is being viewed by those at the controls of Snowshoe this season?
Woody
Hi Woody. I pulled the quote from Snowshoe's Facebook page, where "patient" was spelled correctly. (I see that they have the misspelled version you reference on their web site.) I'm sure they're scrambling to fix things, but unless you prepare for high demand in advance, there's not much you can do other than ask people to be patient and try back later.
Certainly was (and maybe still is) messy.
I can confirm that at 10:55 AM, I was able to complete the online purchase for 2 passes @ the 209 rate + tax.
I started trying at 8 AM, gave up for a while, then decided to try one more time.
Just for laughs - I tried the 800# at 11:15 - still busy.
PS - Woody, I wonder how long until they delete your facebook post. I enjoyed it.
I was just able to buy my pass...seems to be going better now.
Ditto. I have my pass via the SS website. Once I was able to add the pass to my cart, the process moved ahead ... but very slowly. About 40 minutes from start to finish.
'Will be a quick lunch hour !
Woody
