Vail Resorts Debuts 2023-24 Epic Pass Suite, Moves to Phone-Based Access

On Monday, Vail Resorts announced its suite of Epic Pass products for the 2023-24 winter season. Access and pricing will remain similar to last year, meaning Epic’s terms will likely continue to undercut its main competitor, the Ikon Pass.

The top-of-the-line Epic Pass, which offers unlimited access with no blackouts to all resorts owned by Vail, will start at just $909—an increase of 8%, but still cheaper than the pre-2021 Epic Pass, and likely lower than the competing full Ikon Pass (which has not been released yet). The lower-level 2021-22 Epic Local Pass, which contains holiday blackouts and limited access at some resorts, starts at $676—also an 8% increase from last year. Regional Epic products, such as the Northeast Value Pass and Tahoe Local Passes, remain available for a lower price; these products typically come with more restrictive blackouts than the full Epic and Epic Local Passes.

The Epic Day Pass product, which is essentially a flexible 1-to-7-day lift ticket, will continue to be offered in the same three price tiers as last year. However, prices have decreased slightly. The upper “All Resorts” tier starts at $86 for a 1-day non-holiday pass, approximately 8% lower than last year. The “32 Resorts” tier, which excludes high-caliber destinations such as Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Park City, and Whistler, starts at $66 for a 1-day non-holiday pass (8% lower than last year), while the base “22 Resorts” tier, which completely excludes all mountains outside New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and the Midwest, starts at just $41 (7% lower than last year).

Notably, Epic has not lost any major North American partners for the upcoming winter. However, the pass suite will move to involve reservation restrictions for the first time since the 2020-21 season—albeit for a single resort. Telluride, Colorado is moving to a reservation-based access policy next winter; guests will be required to make a reservation in advance on epicpass.com. Telluride is also only included on the full Epic Pass, as well as the 4-7 day versions of the “All Resorts” Epic Day Pass.

The most noteworthy change for the 2023-24 season is arguably the move to an optional hands-free mobile pass. Thanks to a system that uses low-energy Bluetooth signals, guests will be able to store their pass directly on their phone via a new My Epic app—and ski or ride directly onto the lifts without a physical Epic Pass. While the hands-free pass will come standard with every Epic product, physical passes will continue to be optional for all Epic Pass holders. For the 2023-24 season, the hands-free product will not be available at Whistler Blackcomb, Telluride, and Epic’s non-North American resorts.

Epic is also continuing to offer no-interest payment plan for their 2023-24 pass products. Pending creditworthiness, pass purchasers will be able to lock in a 6-month installment plan, with payments starting in September, at no APR. The payment plan continues to be unavailable to Iowa and West Virginia residents.

All 2023-24 Epic Pass products are on sale now on the Epic website.

Our Take

Perhaps the most notable aspect of this announcement is just how little is changing access-wise compared to this season’s Epic Pass products. Sure, Telluride will now require reservations, and the pass now offers more access in Europe, but for most consumers, the 2023-24 Epic Pass suite is essentially the same as the 2022-23 one. Epic’s pass products will continue to substantially undercut Ikon price-wise for the third year in a row, and some Ikon customers eligible for renewal discounts will still pay less if they switch to an equivalent Epic product. And while Epic mountains have experienced high-profile operational problems in recent seasons (such as staffing shortages), our recent experiences suggest these issues have been addressed in part this winter.

While the move to a hands-free Epic Pass likely won’t have a massive impact on the overall mountain experience for most guests, the move may have a handful of benefits—and drawbacks. On the plus side, the lack of a physical card means that guests won’t have to watch in the mail for a physical card before hitting the slopes—and won’t have to wait in the often protracted lines at the ticket window if they, for some reason, don’t receive one.

On the other hand, many guests will own phones that do not do well in the cold, making them unreliable to use on the mountain. It remains to be seen what would happen in the event a customer’s phone dies while trying to ride a lift with their hands-free pass—will they have to go to the ticket office, or will an employee be able to look them up in the system? Will these issues cause notable lift line delays? At least guests who don’t want to deal with these uncertainties will still be able to stick with the traditional physical pass for the 2023-24 season.

Ultimately, Epic looks to be maintaining the status quo this season: continuing to offer unlimited access to Vail-owned resorts at competitive prices, while keeping a grip on the few remaining non-Vail-owned partners. Epic has lost ground in certain regions compared to Ikon in recent years—they lost Sun Valley and Snowbasin last year, and Telluride and the Canadian RCR resorts on the full pass remain the only North American mountains not owned by Vail. As pundited by the Storm Skiing Journal, Vail Resorts likely had to cave on a generous partnership deal—including adding reservations—to keep Telluride on the pass this year.

We’re excited to see how the Epic Pass suite stacks up against the 2023-24 Ikon Pass suite, which has not debuted yet. We’re watching to see whether Ikon maintains a status quo similar to Epic—or decides to shake things up with more radical access changes. It’s also fascinating to see smaller pass players such as Mountain Collective and Indy move to physical RFID passes as Epic seems to be moving away from that space; we’ll be following along to see whether all these passes convolute on a singular access method within the next few years.

For more information on resorts on the Epic Pass, see our Epic Pass mountain reviews as well as our Colorado, Tahoe, Utah, Vermont, and Washington rankings.