It’s also an intentional strategy by Vail to shift sales into season passes. A day pass is incredibly expensive, $229 at the ticket window. For about $600 you might as well buy a season pass just in case you get to use it a bit. They are taking a page out of the gym membership model.
It's really the theme park model that they are learning from. Disney and Universal are in an arms race perfecting this science. A lot of people end up buying annual passes from Disney or Universal since you end up ahead after a couple visits. If you are local that's pretty easy to do. Suddenly you are in the park more often, in arms reach of their $14 entrees and merchandise shops in every corner. Having you in the park/skilodge more often means more chances they can upsell you on stuff they make some real money on, like $12 beer on a 10x markup. Even if you show up every single day and really milk your season pass to these sorts of places, the resort still ends up ahead due to all the other sales you might make for them. Gotta take a break for food at some point when skiing or going to disneyland no matter what.
