Cut Tickets--ethics - Page 13

from a transferability perspective, Lenny... YES!

the ticket that's bought legally but not yet used to ride a lift hasn't been "used" from the perspective of transferability.

once a ticket is used to ride a lift, then it takes on its stated limitation character of "non-transferable"

this is the essence of what makes clipping a theft of services

The ski bus scenario would be the same sort of thing. The "tour director" hands out the tickets as everyone gets off the bus. They've been purchased as a block by one person or group representative, but aren't considered "used" until handed out. In this scenario I would consider that a person who turned his ankle getting off the bus, and then subsequently handed off his ticket to someone else in the group who could use it, would not be committing a "crime", because he hadn't yet actually used the ticket.

Oooh, this is fun...I have one!

Ok, I go on ski club trips and here is a common scenario:

We have four days at a destination and some people opt, ahead of time, at a discounted club rate, for a four-day ticket and some a three-day ticket.

Say someone with a four day ticket decides not to ski a fourth day and offers their remaining day to a club member that bought a three day ticket but would now like to ski a fourth day.

Keep in mind that the per day rate for the three and four day tickets was the same and available to both skiers. The resort was paid for a three day and a four day ticket.

For practical purposes, let's just say that on day four, the two just swapped tickets.

Question:

Has a theft of services occured?

Yes, yes, and yes -- in theory. Most tickets include a clause stating "Void if removed." As the ticket represents a contract between the purchaser and the resort, by removing the ticket after having attached it you've nullified the contract.

The wire bail is a vestige of the past. Most tickets I see these days are designed to be moved from one garment to another, particularly multi-day tickets.

It is? I have only been to two areas where they didn't have wire-bails and it was because they've dumped lifties who check your ticket for those automated gates so you had to have something stretchy. Maybe the reduction in lift attendant costs helps with increased reuse of tickets?

I must not be going to many hi-tech areas, I guess. But then I rarely go to any resort listed in SKI's top 5 or 10....

Could just be that I rarely have a single-day anymore. Skewed perspective.

I don't know if I'd call it a vestige of the past, jstraw. You're correct in pointing out the move towards non-wire wickets, however. The areas I can recall off the top of my head using something other than wickets are Killington, Vail, and Steamboat. Of those, K-Mart and Vail were using zip-ties (which don't appear to be designed for multi-garment usage) and Steamboat was using a season pass style photo-ticket with a necklace (for lack of a better word) -- then again, the Steamboat ticket was a multi-day as you pointed out...I'm not sure what they do for single day tickets.

Both Killington and Vail's tickets are like concert or sporting event tickets -- they're two-piece, one part going on the "wicket" and the other part (the stub) serving as a receipt in the event the ticket is lost.

We kept all tickets from last couple of seasons, memory tells me they were mostly like the Vail ticket already described. I'll check to be sure. We've been to about a dozen different places where tickets were required, some east, some west, large and small areas, one day and multi day alike so it will be fun to go check.

Coming in waayyy too late, I just had to put my vote in...

Forget what's illegal...have you ever gone over the speed limit, or not come to a complete stop, etc... The law is only as good as whether or not you get caught. It doesn't make you a bad person because you break a law that you disagree with.

That's what this discussion is about. Whether or not you are being a bad person by screwing over the resort. The mountain is there. People know where to get lift tickets. If you are at the resort trying to resell your ticket, you are leeching off the resort because people are coming to the mountain whether you're there or not. If you go home, and put it on ebay, and draw someone to the mountain who wasn't going there already, then you're not leeching. Just don't use UPS ground...it won't get there in time.

I tend to always use either one of the rubber loops or retractable cords so that I am never commited to any one garment. So even with zip-tie tickets, I don't use a zip-tie.

When I was taking my first lessons as a nine year old at Ski Bowl on Mt. Hood, they didn't use wire wickets, the used plastic wickets which were about five inches long before turning a right angle on either end, then going another inch like two capital Ls end to end. Well the plastic was quite springy, which made it a pain to bend the ends together and hold them in place while folding and fixing the ticket in place (I remember Dad grumbling about it). The point of this story, is that once these wickets were clipped it was quite obvious, and reattaching it wasn't easy like it is with the wire ones.

There was plastic in those days?

Yes, but I DID have leather ski boots.

he he, just checking to see if you were paying attention! Did those boots have buckles or lace up inner and outer boots?

My boots had five buckles, each of which were about a quarter of an inch wide. Mom and Dad had some lace up boots in the basement, but they had upgraded to more modern ones. Dad had a pair of fiberglass Rosemonts (with Cubco bindings), and I think Mom had plastic Garmonts.

Will the lawlerly types concede it's only a crime if you get caught?

Hmm. I like to think that if there are no victims, it is not a crime. Obviously, that is my own definition The victim here is the mountain, but it's hard to get those anti-Corporate America types to sympathize

Assuming a distinction is being drawn between lawyers and "lawyerly types," no.

Congratulations Skiingman - you've got me nailed. I'm a condescending white guy who is full of it.

I work for a day trip resort near DC. In the pre-season, I also work for the marketing department representing the full family of 3 Pennsylvania resorts attending events to sell passes and hand out brochures. As part of these duties we get briefed on a lot of the "how" the resort chain operates, including pricing changes. You can choose to believe that management lies to me, but I see evidence of their truthfullness every season. It's a lot harder to lie than it is to tell the truth. For example, last year we offered free lessons before Christmas. I asked the man that makes the decisions "Why"? What was the intent of the program? His response was "We're just experimenting. We don't know what the results are going to be. We have no expectations." Yes, they obviously had a reason for doing this program. The glass is 1/2 empty people could view that as a lie. But it was much more truthful to say we want to see how the market reacts to this. It turned out to be no big deal. the bottom line is that after 13 years of working for a resort, I can legitimately claim to know a little something about how things are done.

The basic mode of our resort is that all profits get plowed back into investments for the next season. Each year's prices are pretty much set by adding a couple of bucks to last year's prices. From prior year discussions I know that management is well aware that raising prices too much cuts down skier days. I've been watching our pricing very closely for the last 5 years. I can see the little things that they have been working to accomplish. Under the previous ownership prior to that, there was much less method to the madness but reinvestment was the basic modus operandi. For the last 5 years we have seen lots of evidence that the bottom line is what is most important and that the top line is a key factor in achieving that.

This is the first year that any of our PA resorts has offered a multi day ticket. It's hard to argue that in our case that management does not want to sell day tickets. I agree that destination resorts have different products to sell than day resorts do and that lift tickets are only a fraction of the total dollar that a resort hopes to get from each guest. But even at a destination resort, lift tickets are a significant portion of the total revenue. Although there are a few resorts that are in "milk the cow" mode (no investment), and a few in "planting for the future" mode, does anyone disagree that most resorts reinvest 90% or more of ski operation profits? Or was all that hooey about real estate profits just more of that alarmist prolefeed?

Although there are a few people who go to a resort that will turn around and go home if they can't get a cut ticket, my guess is that over 80% of cut ticket users would have bought a regular ticket if no cut ticket was available. Before our resort had "flexible time" tickets, there were no regular groups (that I could see) of incoming skiers hustling for tickets from outgoing skiers or vice versa. What I saw were sales of opportunity. Ok - at Killington it may be different. You have to admit that at least some of the cut tickets are simply lost revenue. This plus the investment mode does not "prove" anything. Ok - now that I think it about it more, I guess the end result is that the lost revenue translates more directly to less investment the next season. So it's only indirectly that you are stealing from everyone else on the mountain. Since you don't see this as theft in the first place, it's a moot point.

I got the gold pass price from their web site. That was the early price (before 9/15). Inflation - go figure.

When you don't pay your income taxes, from my perspective you are stealing from me. Oh wait, it does not matter because we all cheat on our taxes right? Does that make it "fair" then? But you're right that when the net amounts are small enough, it's not worth worrying about much. Somehow, though, the length of this thread says that we've touched a nerve.

Whether or not you agree with the terms of purchase, they are what they are and the law says that the terms are legal and cutting tickets is theft of services. There is no debate about this the same way that there is no doubt about the legality of the federal income tax. I don't need a right to make that claim. That's a fact that is observable, testable and has court precedent. I have not seen one successful case of false advertising brought against a ski resort against the terms of sale for lift tickets. Does anyone believe that there is no law firm that would take such a case? Have you petitioned your representatives to have law introduced to ban such practices? I've seen people get arrested for hiking up without a "lift" ticket under the premise that they did not need one because they were not using the lifts. This argument does not hold up in court either. Sorry folks, but whatever you think about this issue morally, the legal questions have been resolved quite fully.

Since our country was founded on civil disobedience, I have a somewhat soft ethical spot for people doing such activities when they believe they are morally right. I have no problem applauding when people do this. The only problem I've got is that you need to make an effort to have all of the facts when you cross that line. When the facts behind your reasoning for civil disobedience are open to question, I'll hold my applause. If you cut tickets because you believe the ski industry is making excessive profits, please check the facts.

I can remember when our resort first opened, there were quite a large number of people who believed that the owners were ripping us all off. The lift prices were significantly higher than other nearby areas. From the customer side, everything was rediculously expensive and "clearly" overpriced (relative to what appeared to be obvious costs). From the employee side, it seemed horribly unfair to receive minimum wage while generating hundreds of dollars per hour of profit for the resort. Yet when the bankruptcy dust was settled, it was clear that the resort owners lost an average of at least one million dollars per season. What was not so clear was that only one season in three generated a profit. Although lack of ownership skill had a lot to do with this, how can one say that their pricing was not fair? The fact is that they priced their product under their cost. There were a lot of actions taken in anger under the justification that the resort was making cash by the bucketful. And that part was true - the resort was making cash by the bucketfull. Those people thought their actions were fair at the time and solely in that respect they were right. But there was another side to the story (those even larger losing cash buckets). When you look at the whole picture it's easy to see how many of those actions simply made the owners poorer. Personally, I think the creation of millions of skier days at great personal expense is worth a little more respect.

I did not proclaim you to be right or wrong. I did claim that cutting tickets was not "fair". To me breaking the rules is fair when there is no other alternative or when the rules make no sense. I can see how you can see that the non-transferrable rule makes no sense. But I see alternatives where you don't. In some small sense I wish you would not "cut tickets" in the same way I wish you would not cheat on your taxes. I only care about this enough to hope to influence those on the fence about this - to present the other side of the argument. Want to trade places? I'd like to argue that making tickets transferrable would be more profitable for resorts! (I don't believe it, but I would not mind arguing it).

It depends on the terms of the group ticket. Sometimes they are different. But probably so. Morally though this would be real close to ok because the net impact to the resort is close to zero. I'm giving some credence to the possibility that the resort would not honor such a trade if asked. The reality is that 99% of resorts would be glad to do so. So, morally, it's 99% ok. Unless, of course, you think non-transferrability is immoral. Then it would be 100% ok.

I know some guys, who do that permanently. And they save money, of course. I agreed, it is not good. However the human nature has to sides: white and black. These 2 sides present in each human and somebody cannot prevent these "black wishes". For example, in one creazy day all gas stations start to distribute gas without any control, you pay for gas or not (now you can fill you car without payment in number of States, however I have a pretty big chance to lose your drive licence). What will we have? Somebody will pay, somebody will not. And it does not depend on gas price. It depends on only what is the side, black or white bigger in particular human.

On Ski area it is not so implicit. We can find some black _detours_. Do you want to ski on Liberty for free? Absolutely free! No problem! Do not park your car near the main entrance. Drive around the Liberty Mountain and find small road from other side. You can park your car on this road and come thru employer's gate. No any guards there. Then ski on blues and blacks. Nobody will check you pass, because if you by _normal_ way, you have to lift from main entrance and any pass checking there. I did not do that. Moreover, I know nobody who did that.

As to me I prefer to have a pass - season pass =). I can ski no more than 2 hours per day, because I ski with small kids and they need be rest very quickly.

Ya know, I really don't have any problem with this scenario. Legal or illegal, I don't know. I wouldn't have a guilty conscience for doing something like this. I've been on many, many ski trips where I haven't used a day or two of a multi day pass. I always go to the office and check on a refund if this is the case. Most of the time, i've gotten a refund or a voucher good good for another visit. In some places where I couldn't get a refund, i've tried to give the remaining days to someone as I left the resort. Notice I said give and not sell.

Sweet. I was hoping I wasn't too far off the mark.
While the rest of what you say in that paragraph is undoubtedly valid, I'm confused as to why you assume working for a day-trip place near DC is analagous to the pricing practices of publically owned corporations with millions of skier visits and dozens of "marketing professionals" making the pricing decisions. Everything I've said about the fact that there is no negative effect on resort revenue from the practice of selling cut tickets has (I hope) specifically addressed the ASC type situation. I realize how far that is from the local place situation, and as noted I've never seen a ticket cut and sold at our local place.
Why would you assume the other decisions that the business makes are based on facts any more solid than the ones this one is based on?

[quote]
Each year's prices are pretty much set by adding a couple of bucks to last year's prices. From prior year discussions I know that management is well aware that raising prices too much cuts down skier days. I've been watching our pricing very closely for the last 5 years. I can see the little things that they have been working to accomplish. Under the previous ownership prior to that, there was much less method to the madness but reinvestment was the basic modus operandi. For the last 5 years we have seen lots of evidence that the bottom line is what is most important and that the top line is a key factor in achieving that.
I think management at those resorts realizes thats not always a good thing for their business model. Bad snow year, you are screwed. If you make more of your money on restaurants, real-estate, lodging, equipment sales, and so on, you may be able to suffer less when the number of people making short term commitments declines.

You acknowledge that they know that higher prices have an adverse effect on skier visits. If that's the case, why don't the destination resorts with excess infrastructure drop the prices to bring in more people who will eat more hot-dogs and drink more beer? Why not sell midweek tickets for 40 bucks and see what happens?

My (to me obvious) answer is that it becomes harder to monopolize the local lodging if people can pay a reasonable price for the skiing portion of the equation. Backing up my logic is the fact that the destination resorts often offer special deals to local people. If you aren't coming from somewhere else and lodging near the resort, they'll often offer you a better price to encourage you to visit more often.
My guess assumes a much smaller percentage. Perhaps this is because I'm closer to the economic status of the typical young male ticket cutter. Perhaps your guess is better than mine. Point is, no one really knows. If the resorts wanted to, it would be plenty easy to figure out, and plenty easy (and reasonably cheap in the grand scheme of things) to prevent the practice entirely.

I've seen absolutely no evidence to suggest that the majority of resorts have done this. Either they completely ignore the practice, make a teensy effort to discourage it (signs at the Canyons in the village), or they do something involving technology that often only appears to make the problem go away.
My 4 skier model did admit that. It merely claimed that the additional revenue can be greater than the lost revenue. This is based on my assumption that fewer than 80% of ticket cutters are willing to drop bank on full price tickets. Personally, I've never engaged in the practice, but when I've been denied my freebie for whatever reason I've always gone someplace else instead. This is easier in some areas than others.
This is again based on your assumption that the practice causes a net loss of revenue. I think its less clear cut, and I think the lack of effort on the resorts parts suggests I'm right. If they know its costing them money and they are doing so little about it, shame on them for being lousy businesspeople.


Its not so much that I see it as unfair or nonsensical as just plain disingenuous. The resorts make the choice to advertise and sell it as an eight hour ticket. They could just as easily sell it as an 8 hour pass for a single user, but I've never seen those words used outside of skiers talking to each other.

If I bought a concert ticket that said on the face of it that it was good for a particular thing on a particular date, but the back pointed out in little type that I can't legally sell it I'd be equally annoyed.

Its just another example (to me) of business getting away with claiming to provide one thing and actually providing something completely different.

BTW, if the snow report says 24 lifts will be running when you check it at 6am, and you show up at 8:30 and every lift is on hold, don't expect a refund or any sympathy from the resort. I'd love to see ticketmaster try and get away without refunding tickets when an event is cancelled.

Even if I did think the issues with cutting tickets were valid, I'd still have to say they are a lot less consequential than cheating on the taxes. Probably more people do the latter. Few people express disgust or outrage at this. I've not seen a 350 post thread anywhere about how awful it is that people can get away with paying less than their fair share.

The suggestion that they could offer a transferrable ticket for a premium price is a good one. When the technological devices that will make cut-tickets less feasible see more widespread use, I'd be surprised if we didn't see more of those premium transferrable passes.

I agree the practice has neglible effect on revenue. I thought I'd covered that.
Because they've told me what they are doing and why.

At our resorts they have figured out that snowmaking capacity can overcome mediocre weather and that really bad weather years just get toughed out. Our resorts make the bulk of their money off tickets and rentals. Granted other resorts have a different mix of profit contributors, but the basic model of reinvestment is quite common throughout the industry.
Because the economics work differently for destination resorts. There are more cost effective means of getting additional skiers to visit (e.g. subsidizing direct airfare, group sales). Yet even our local resort can not entice significant mid week skiers with low prices. I understand that Crested Butte sold a lot more beer during their free ski weeks (beginning of the season right?). Hmm do they do that anymore? I vaguely remember something about not liking the kind of crowd that was attracted.
How many resorts have a monopoly on local lodging? You going to use Killington as an example? Sorry, I'm having trouble seeing how your obvious answers prevent $40 mid week tickets.
Well I tried to show how it could. Is a ticket cutter really going to spend $40 on food and drink and ski rentals? Resorts don't aggressively go after this because it's not that big of a problem and they have much bigger problems to worry about. (I'd guess that signs about the practice got posted because someone sold a ticket in front of SAM walking through the parking lot. I know some SAM that would love to see the practice disappear solely because it cheapen's the atmosphere.) It's simply not cost effective to try to reduce all forms of ticket cheating to zero. It is cost effective to deploy just enough deterrent to keep the volume low.

Then be thankful you are not a Redskins fan, or a Master's or Superbowl ticketholder. The practice of non-transferable tickets is not uncommon.

[quote=skiingman]
BTW, if the snow report says 24 lifts will be running when you check it at 6am, and you show up at 8:30 and every lift is on hold, don't expect a refund or any sympathy from the resort.
[/QUOTE=skiingman]
Our resort hands out vouchers when we are forced to close early. Temporary lift outages are part of the deal. That's not on the ticket either.

[quote=skiingman]
Even if I did think the issues with cutting tickets were valid, I'd still have to say they are a lot less consequential than cheating on the taxes.
[/QUOTE=skiingman]
No argument.


I would be. Many resorts already offer corporate transferrable passes, transferrable vouchers and other kinds of transferrable products. Frankly, in this day and age, the logistics of handling transferrable passes suck. It's usually a hassle for me to give away my free passes. I think there is more customer demand for "by the drink" pricing than there is for transferrable tickets. Our resort's flex ticket product (offering 4 or 8 hour ski days that start from when the ticket is sold) has been quite popular.

Definitely NOT Killington. I think Intrawest is really the leader of the pack there.
The fact that I've been lucky enough to pay nothing for most of my tickets (sadly, no more) very definitely increases the amount of money I spend on other things at the resorts. If I were paying for my tickets, I simply wouldn't be able to justify many of the goods I've bought or services I've used.

Its really not hard to spend 40 bucks on food and drink, particularly for this fat kid who loves beers with pals on the porch at the end of the day.

Agreed.
Yup, I'd be pretty darned annoyed.

I'd note that when you buy a non-transferrable airline ticket, its billed as such in big bold letters on the front, and you can't purchase it without them reminding you of such at least twice.

Here is an industry that indeed does have a price structure based in part on the transferrability of their tickets. Unlike the ski industry, they don't try and hide it. I still think its a lousy business centric way of doing things, as opposed to the customer friendly way I've learned things work best for all parties. This is no doubt influenced by my retail experiences.
They didn't, pointing out it was "temporary" and then backing it up by opening one lift at about 10. I didn't stick around to see if they opened more later. It was a big gaffe on their part, the grooming staff didn't communicate with anyone else that they hadn't groomed and that the mountain was a brick of rough rained on ice.

Knowing the weather the night before, I called the snow-phone to ensure they'd have some lifts turning. I didn't expect the skiing to be great. The snow-phone had a pretty young thing that claimed everything would be open, blah blah blah. I know those reports are bullshit, I didn't realize they were COMPLETELY FABRICATED. As in, there is no way anyone in the know at the resort thought at 6:30 that they would possibly have all that stuff open by 8:30.

I'm pretty sure a good number of local hills wouldn't be in business without that setup. I think its funny to hear about places doing this recently. My hill has been doing it since I learned to ski 15 years ago, and many years before that. Its literally the way I thought all ski tickets worked until I got to go to the "big mountains" the next year. What a disappointment. In those days, they stamped your ticket when you bought it. The girls in the ticket building changed the stamp every half hour. Now its obviously electronic.

Ethics....Since about 94 percent of the skiers appareantly don't pay full price like I do, maybe it would only fair for me to try and pick up some of these non-transferable tickets.

Skiingman...do you know the difference between the ASC and Intrawest business model? You seem to be focusing on ASC as the "evil" corporate interest in this debate -- the thing that I find incredible, however, is the fact that it's taken 13+ pages to hash out an obvious ethical question. Is the clipping of tickets legally defined as theft (a.k.a. "stealing" a.k.a. dishonest): Yup! What more is there to debate in this capitalist society?

I'm certainly not focused on ASC. I do know they have pretty large numbers of ticketcutters.
Wow, I wish my thoughts were as simple as yours. I could just start believing everything the rich white men tell me.

The only way I would feel bad giving or taking a "used" ticket is if I skied at some type of a co-op mountain. (does such a thing exsist?)

Otherwise, I figure: If I paid for the right to ski till 5pm, but I decided to leave at 3pm... I should be able to pass that right to ski till 5, on to who ever I want. Because I paid for it! To heck with policy.

Same deal as the previous example of a rented dvd. If I rented the dvd for 5 days, and I let a friend use it for last 2 days... what damage is done? Especially, if my friend would have never rented the dvd in the first place? Which is often the case - people looking for cut tickets would not be able to pay full faire, and simply would not ski.

Also, these people just might drop a buck or two at the snack bar, or other services. This buck wouldnt have been made if the original owner of the ticket didnt transfer it (and left early anyways). This is why I think most resorts ignore such activity.