Ski Resorts Refunding Checked-Baggage Fees Next Season
By Rocky Thompson on June 18th, 2009
Air travel annoyance is at an all-time high. It’s not so much taking off your shoes or packing liquids in a separate plastic bag as it is getting hammered for an extra $40 for checking two bags. Summer’s easy for traveling light, but flying across the country to ski means there’s no way to avoid checking a bunch of garbage and getting slammed for extra fees. Steamboat is setting up a program to refund $50 to air travelers who have to check their bags when they head to Colorado. Ski Utah should consider a similar program now that the numbers are in and we saw a 6.5% drop in skiers the last year. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we’ll see Steamboat yank $50 out of our pockets someplace else if we fly there and take the cash, but it does make it a little easier to swallow the airline pill on the way out.
Steamboat (and other resorts) used this as a promotion last year as well. You have to reserve through central booking, and their prices were always about $50/person higher than other travel sites.
It might sound like a good thing, but with this program you have to deal with any extra paperwork involved in their special Amex card. I’d rather just pay each company directly. The only winner with this program is Amex, so in the end their added inefficiency costs you just a bit more.