Where To Buy Steamboat Lift Tickets

There’s no secret source to buy lift tickets. You usually have to go straight to the source and in this case, your best bet is to head to Steamboat.com to find the latest ticket prices. The two places to buy Steamboat lift tickets would be on their website, where you can get a discount if purchased early enough, OR you have to buy the tickets at the window at the window price which will often be the most expensive way to buy lift tickets.

If you find any other sellers of lift tickets, they aren’t likely legit or they won’t offer any real discount. So your best and safest bet is to buy from the resort.

Steamboat Lift Ticket Prices

Lift tickets have gone up a lot in the last few years. The 2018-19 winter season was our first full season living in Steamboat and the window prices ranged from $149-199 for a full day adult ticket throughought the season.

Few people pay the window price though. I’ll discuss other discounts below, but right off the bat – you can get about 20% off the window price if you purchase online at least 7 days in advance. So that’s what most people do.

As of Sept 28, 2019, I’m seeing tickets ranging from $115-155 per day for 3 day tickets. They aren’t currently selling 1 or 2 day tickets but they will later in the season. Expect prices to be higher though once the season starts.

For the upcoming 2019-20 season, Steamboat is offering some other price level including the following:

• Night Skiing: Currently $39
• Afternoon: Price varies, available for walk-up only after 12:15pm
• Lower Mountain: Currently $45 (great for beginners, Preview lift only)

As you’d expect, prices are always subject to change so make sure to check the website for latest prices.

We definitely have had family and friends visit and take advantage of the lower mountain tickets. It’s a great way to save some money and give young kids starting out a good first day starting out. They may only last a few hours on their first day anyway. Our experience has been that kids under a certain age are sometimes less than $45.

Any Discounts or Deals on Steamboat Lift Tickets?

Apart from the standard 20% off if you purchase online 7 days in advance, there are some other opportunities for discounts.

Kids Ski Free

If you plan to ski 5 days or more and are buying lift tickets for kids, this is often a good option. Kids and grandkids ski free along with 1 adult ticket purchased. This deal was available the entire season last year and it’s available as I write this in the 2020 season. Steamboat often ranks as one of the best resorts for families and the “Kids Ski Free” deal is one of the main reasons for this.

Steamboat Packages & Deals

Steamboat Resort offers various packages and deals every year when you book lodging and lift tickets together. This is usually savings up to 30% and often requires a minimum stay of 8 days.

Steamboat Lift Ticket Discounts with Lodging

There are some legitimate resorts offering discounts on lift tickets. These lodging locations have deals with Steamboat Resort and can offer large discounts that are hard to find elsewhere.  These are usually only available before the season starts. For example, you may need to purchase a minimum of 3 days by October and also book your lodging in order to get around $100 off total for 3 days. This is just an example of what I’ve seen recently. You’ll need to check with your lodging operator to see what discounts are available and be ready to book WAY in advance!

Early Season Discounts

As I mentioned above, tickets are cheaper online earlier in the season. Early birds get the worm when it comes to lift ticket prices. Besides beating the normal price increases, early birds can also take advantage of some early season discounts. In the last 2 seasons, Steamboat offered a 3-day ticket offer for under $200.

This awesome deal was offered in August-September and may have only been promoted to previous ticket purchasers. Some people I shared it with had trouble finding it on the website, but I was able to send the link to people who wanted to take advantage of that deal. If you ever see this deal in the future, snap it up because you’ll never get a cheaper price.

This year, there were only blackout dates around Christmas and New Years and the 3 days of access were good for any 3 days of the season (non-consecutive)

IKON Pass Discount

IKON pass is the season pass sold by Alterra Mountain Resort, the owner of Steamboat Resort. If you know anyone with an IKON pass, you may be able to bum a discount off them. This is good for 25% off the window price and you can purchase same day.

We saved friends and family close to $1,000 last season on lift tickets. Sure, they could have saved 20% off if they just purchased in advance, but they saved an extra 5% and had the ability to decide last minute what days they wanted to ski.

IKON Pass holders each get 10 discount days for friends and family. Otherwise, I’d share my IKON discount with anyone reading this post!

IKON Pass – Is It Worth It?

If you plan to ski 5 days or more or you want to do more than 1 ski trip in a year, you may want to look into the IKON Pass for the year.

The IKON Pass costs $1,049 for the full pass and $749 for the base pass for the 2019-2020. If you’re skiing 5 days at Steamboat, you’ll probably already be spending $550-750 on a lift ticket.

The IKON base pass includes 5 days at Steamboat and 28 other destinations and unlimited days at 12 destinations. There are some blackout dates on the base pass, so make sure to check those before purchasing.

Get more details at ikonpass.com