In our experience at ASO Mammoth, it’s not conditions or the possibility of injury that keeps skiers and snowboarders from visiting the slopes more often. It’s the cost.
When you consider the price of buying and renting ski and snowboard gear, travel to the mountain, and the cost of a single lift ticket, you can see why skiers and snowboarders are always looking for a way to save money. One cost-cutting method we’ve had many people ask us about is buying lift tickets from private sellers on Craigslist, so we’ve decided to give our two cents on the matter below. Check it out and start planning your trip to Mammoth!
There are Legitimate Sellers and Deals
If we could tell you that all the lift tickets for sale on Craigslist are fakes, then there would be no reason for this post.
The truth is that there are legitimate lift tickets on Craigslist being sold by real people, and some of the deals can be too good to pass up. You may write off Craigslist deals as being too good to be true and likely a scam, but if someone is posting their lift tickets to Craigslist it often means that they’ve had a last minute cancellation and have run out of options to get all or at least some of their money back.
For this reason, the lift ticket deals on Craigslist can be incredible, but there are disadvantages to buying lift tickets on Craigslist that you need to know about.
There’s No Backup for Your Purchase
Unlike REI, Liftopia, or other websites that we recommend people use to find discounted lift tickets, Craigslist is simply a tool with no administrative backup to guarantee purchases.
While other lift ticket sellers rely on their reputation and performance to continue selling tickets, sellers on Craigslist are anonymous and, if you agree to it, then they can sell you tickets without ever proving that they are real. This is especially true if your seller is sending your tickets in the mail or digitally, which we always recommend avoiding.
In other words, there are no guarantees you can take away from a Craigslist post, which is why the next point is so important.
Make your Purchases Legitimate
If you see a lift ticket deal on Craigslist that is too good to pass up, then the best way to protect your money is to force the seller to prove that the tickets are legitimate before you pay.
The best method to legitimize your purchase is buy asking the seller to meet you at the ticket office and confirming that the tickets are not counterfeit with the mountain before handing over your money. It’s possible that not every seller will be able to meet you at the ticket office, but if you insist on authenticating lift tickets with the mountain before you pay then you will give yourself a guarantee that Craigslist cannot.
Get ID Information for Backup
If your seller can’t meet you at the mountain’s ticket office and you’re forced to meet with them somewhere else, we recommend getting some sort of ID information so that if the tickets turn out to be counterfeits then you have something to identify the seller by.
Whether it’s a driver’s license number or the seller’s address on their license, make sure that you have some piece of information so that you can remove the anonymity that comes with Craigslist deals.