How To Cut Your Snow Expenses

As Published In: THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
June 16, 2011

Skiing is an expensive sport: at more than $100 for a lift ticket in Australia, there are definitely cheaper passions to have (and cheaper places to have them). Snow It All loves a bargain as much as Sarah Ferguson should, but even I was surprised at the response to Thredbo's recent 50-per-cent-off sale.

The Friday of opening weekend, the resort offered a one off-deal from 9.00am to 9.00pm. Buy one lift ticket to be used on any day of the season and get 50 per cent off. Thredbo's peak-season one-day lift-pass is $107 so the offer was a $53.50 saving, but the catch? It was limited to one pass per person only and available for purchase online.

What happened? The site was inundated with customers, struggled to meet the demand and crashed. Their Facebook page was then filled with desparate skiers and boarders terrified of missing out on their $53.50 saving. Thredbo handled it well, they extended the offer to midnight to make up for the offline time and kept customers up to date with regular Facebook updates. But clearly even they underestimated the need for cheaper skiing in Australia.

Group coupon website, Living Social, offered $1 New Zealand lift passes last week advertised on their Australian website. Customers could purchase a maximum of four per person and four additional passes as gifts. The lift pass could be used anytime throughout the season. The passes were for Mount Ruapehu's Whakapapa and Turoa ski areas in the North Island which normally charge NZ$95 for a pass.

You don't have to have a 1800-Tarot number to know what happened next. Mount Ruapehu and Tourism New Zealand had expected to sell around 2000 passes but over 19,000 lift passes were purchased. Who wouldn't want to ski four days for $4?

It's obvious Australian skiers are begging for value. The strong Aussie dollar has seen record numbers of Australians book US ski trips in the past year. When you get US$1.06 to one Australian dollar and lift passes are already well under the $100 mark, why wouldn't you?

Then there's the leakage of Aussie skiers to New Zealand. Don't think for a moment it's because the snow's better, it's the same snow with the same moisture content we get at home. It's a price point (ok, Queenstown's apres and adrenaline scene does help) and that price point is currently $1.31 to the Aussie dollar.

Every year we bitch and complain about the price of lift passes, the extortionate cost of less than average food and hotel rip off merchants and every year they plead their three month season to make money case and every year we still return. Why? Because snow is addictive and skiing in Australia is unique in a country known for desert and beach.

There are ways to save money, wherever you ski. You just have to know where to buy cheap ski and snowboard gear, where to look for cheap deals and accept that complaining about the cost of skiing and snowboarding while still skiing and snowboarding is a first world problem. Scratch that, it's a first world middle class problem.

I'm a sucker for online shopping for winter gear, especially if they offer free shipping and a return policy. When shopping online check if the store can send the brand you want to Australia, as some are restricted,  but there are sites, like shipito.com and myus.com where you can purchase a US address and they will then ship the product to you.

You can make some seriously big savings on American websites that already charge less than here, even before they've discounted, then you can factor in the strong Aussie dollar and the opposite seasons - which mean we get their end-of-season winter sales just as we're heading into cold weather.

Department of Goods is the outlet site for Backcountry.com for all things snow and ski

Golf and Ski Warehouse is exactly that, a warehouse store for ski and snow gear and, yes, golfing too

Rei Outlet have weekly deals on top of their daily deals

Steep and Cheap offer one quality item a day until it's gone

Skiers Outlet is what it is

Revolve Clothing and Urban Outfitters both ship to Australia and are a good place to find sale items on down puffer jackets and winter clothing.

Personally, I spend hours on ebay buying and selling outerwear and snow gear and know plenty of Australian friends in the industry trying to offload their old unused goods so it's worth perusing. Ski.com.au also have a classifieds section for ski and snow gear.

On the ground in Australia you'll find a bargain at ski swaps, annual sales and consignment stores specialising in snow goods. Melbourne's Ski and Board Surrey has a fantastic second-hand department plus a recycling and buy-back program for your gear. Drop your gear in and they'll sell it on consignment for you. Bumps, also in Melbourne, holds an annual kids recycled gear sale in the pre-season and Dirty Distribution have a mammoth sale on in Melbourne now.

Brisbane's Ski Gear Recycle in Keperra run by Snow Central have both new and used gear and great prices and The Last Run in Jindabyne is an outlet store for big name brands like Salomon, Nordica, Spyder and Giro.  Snowsports ACT have an annual ski swap sale in the old Bus Depot in Kingston on the second Saturday in May and money goes to help local athletes.

Then there's the usual accommodation and group coupon sites. Try Hotels.com, Easybeds.com, Lastminute.com and Wotif.com for accommodation and sign up for group coupon sites like Spreets, Living Social and Jump On It for daily deals that may just include a snow option.

The best option to save money on skiing and snowboarding is not to go at all, but my mother would call that is 'cutting off your nose to spite your face'. Winter provides the snow flakes and it would be rude for us not to use them.