Travellers and locals are furious after Thredbo ski resort increased winter prices and cancelled season passes, forcing snow-lovers to join an online queue of thousands to secure lift tickets.
In order to comply with strict COVID-19 social distancing laws, skiers and snowboarders will only be able to access ski resorts in New South Wales and Victoria, if they have pre-purchased passes or lift tickets.
After waiting for up to 15 hours last Thursday, customers are calling on Thredbo to honour pre-existing bookings, with many having already pre-paid for accomodation.
Thredbo season pass holder and passionate skier, Leisa Henderson, jumped on the online ski pass shop 45 minutes before the resort’s lift tickets went on sale. With pre-booked accomodation for two weeks in July, Leisa was thrilled ski resorts were able to open this year, given the current coronavirus climate.
“At 11:15am I logged into my account, in an attempt to try and beat the crowds. I was shocked to see there were already over 7,000 people in the queue waiting for tickets,” she said.
With little hope of making it through the online crowds, Leisa suddenly started to move ahead, at one stage being 105th in line. Yet, her chances of making it through to checkout quickly vanished.
“After sales opened, I was prompted to provide my email address, which indicated my spot would be held in the live line and I would receive an email advising when it was my turn.”
Approximately 30 minutes later she received the email, to which she proceeded to click on the link, which sent her to an “invalid URL” error page.
“Initially I thought something was wrong on my end. I then went back to the site and it said it was my turn, but shortly after, I was sent back thousands of places,” she said.
“It was disappointing not to be able to secure tickets. We love travelling down from Sydney to Jindabyne to enjoy Thredbo’s amazing amenities and mountain…I didn’t think it was going to be this difficult.”
Similarly, John Harrison who moved to Australia last year, was frustrated with Thredbo’s queuing system and response to the public.
“I logged onto my Thredbo account around 6:00am and after a few meetings, I checked to see that I was still logged in, but I had been logged out. I noticed the queuing system had started early, 7600 people were in front of me.”
Mr Harrison said by the time he got home that evening, there were still over 4000 people in front of him. Luckily, the dates he had pre-booked accomodation for, during the July school holidays, still appeared available.
“I got down into the 100s and thought I was going to make it to checkout, but then the page refreshed and all three days said ‘sold out’.”
“I am gutted. I have a $4000 hotel room and no way of accessing the slopes. Thredbo managed this appallingly. Why not prioritise people who already had accomodation booked? Why not limit the number of tickets per account? Absolute rubbish from Thredbo,” he said.
Some believed Thredbo’s decision to not prioritise season ticket holders was “nonsensical”, which rival resort Perisher has provided.
Matt Goodall, the director of Australian snow tourism company, OZ Snow, faced the full force of many disgruntled customers, after Thredbo’s opening sales scramble.
“We have so many people who paid for accomodation and lift passes in March.”
Thredbo has failed to offer a ‘middle ground’ to customers who already organised and paid for the ski season.
“You can’t use your accommodation without a lift pass. Thousands of people are trying to get these passes for their already-booked dates. There’s a panic,” he said.
“Too bad, your package is cancelled and back to the end of the 30,000 queue,” was Thredbo’s attitude, Mr Goodall said in a statement to Daily Mail.
Thredbo’s advertised five day pass was originally $370.00, but passes are now being sold per day at $159.00, costing skiers and snowboarders $795.00 for five days.
“Their package all of a sudden doubled,” Mr Goodall said.
Thredbo’s apology: “we have never seen this level of demand”
On Friday afternoon, Stuart Diver, Thredbo’s General Manager, apologised to customers who were unsuccessful in securing a lift ticket for this season.
Mr Diver said, “I understand the past 24 hours have been a really frustrating time for some of you who have been trying to purchase passes to ski and snowboard in Thredbo for 2020.”
“There are three times the number of [people] who want to come and ski and snowboard in Thredbo than there are currently available passes,” he said.
“I’m sorry, I’d love to see you all down here but until those restrictions ease and conditions change, there’s not much I can do about it.”
For many avid skiers and snowboarders, the ultimate snow experience will be very different this year, with accommodation, food services and ski lessons, greatly limited. Businesses surrounding Thredbo village are likely to suffer if people are unable to purchase lift tickets.
Monique Easton, owner of The Eastern, two luxury Airbnb spaces located on the west side of Thredbo’s central ski village, said there was very little consultation with property owners located in the village on plans for the 2020 season.
“In late May we received a press release from the Thredbo Property department with the new opening date of June 22 with some information around social distancing and we’ve not heard anything since.”
“Property owners have been directed to the same information source as guests – the COVID-19 page on [Thredbo Resort’s] website. We were not given any insight into the mechanisms they had in place to reduce the numbers to 50 per cent, does this apply to accomodation as well? Were they going to apply the Victorian method of only allowing guests into the village who had lift passes?.”
Accomodation providers were in a difficult decision, many are contractually obligated to have their properties open for tourism, but were not given the opportunity to purchase lift tickets for guests. Offering accomodation and ticket pages may have helped to alleviate panic among accomodation providers and travellers.
“It’s been a stressful time for guests who have booked trips hoping to secure lift tickets when they were released. Ideally, lift tickets could have been aligned with the local rental pool to reduce a lot of this stress for both owners and guests,” she said.
Despite many powderhounds fuming over the past few days, a glimmer of hope has emerged, as only six weeks ago it was assumed the village would not be open for this year’s season.
“After the announcement of the official opening of the season, we did receive a spike in bookings. It was the certainty a lot of guests needed to hear before booking,” she said.
“We are expecting a successful season. Thredbo just installed a brand new Merritts gondola, which is impressive and guests are very keen to get out into the mountain air and explore, after being trapped up for months.”
Featured Image (Source: Theo Savoy/ Pexels)
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