The Best Deal in Skiing — If You Can Get It
People love to hate Vail Resorts.
Former Park City ski instructor (and current billionaire CEO) Matthew Prince has been very public about his frustrations with the company, and is publicly pressuring them to sell PCMR — to him, of course. Folk-rock musician Noah Kahan recently took a shot at them from the stage in Denver. Wall Street fell out of love with them a couple of years ago, judging from their stock price. And looking at the comments on nearly any Vail Resorts social media post (or any article or blog post that mentions a Vail-owned property) — it is clear that there are a lot of skiers out there who are deeply unhappy with the company.
But there is at least one thing that is very difficult to criticize Vail Resorts for: its military pass program. Specifically, the company offers deeply discounted Epic Military Passes to qualifying Active and Retired members of the U.S., Canadian and Australian militaries — and their eligible dependents.
This may be the absolute best deal in skiing.
As of August 2026, the 2026–27 pricing is:
Those prices are slightly higher than the “launch” price from May (and Vail says prices will increase again after September 7).
The Active/Retired price is the one that really jumps off the page. Anyone who has been skiing in recent years knows that $220 does not buy much lift access at a major North American destination resort. But this number becomes even more remarkable once you look at what the pass actually includes — and what everyone else pays for comparable access.
What Does the Epic Military Pass Actually Include?
This is important, because the Epic Military Pass is not some bargain-basement product filled with restrictions that happens to have the Epic name attached to it. For most skiers, it is nearly identical to the full Epic Pass — the premier (and priciest) pass product that Vail Resorts offers.
The full Epic Pass is Vail Resorts’ flagship multi-resort, full-season pass, and it includes unlimited skiing at Vail-owned resorts with no blackout dates, a discount program for non-lift ticket products and services called Epic Mountain Rewards, and access to a collection of partner resorts around the world. For those who do not need that full pass, Vail offers a variety of other pass options including the Epic Day Pass, which allows the consumer to choose how many days they will ski (a minimum of 1 ski day and a maximum of 7). There are some additional options you can choose based on how you plan to use the pass.
The Military Passes include nearly the same core Vail Resorts benefits as the Epic Pass itself as well as the Epic Day Pass (as we have configured it):
¹ For this comparison, we are using the 4-Day Epic Day Pass configured for All Resorts with Peak Date Access.
The major difference is partner access.
The full Epic Pass includes access, subject to various limits and conditions, to partner resorts such as Telluride as well as participating resorts in Canada, Japan and Europe. The 4-Day Epic Day Pass that we have configured includes some partner access (Telluride and Resorts of the Canadian Rockies).
The Military Pass offers no partner access at all.
That distinction would be important if one of those partner resorts is part of your ski plans. But if your goal is to ski Vail Resorts-owned properties — Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Park City, Whistler Blackcomb, Stowe and many others — the Military Pass delivers essentially the same unrestricted winter access as the full Epic Pass.
It also gets Epic Mountain Rewards, including 20% discounts on eligible food, lodging, group lessons, rentals and other purchases.
Other benefits offered to Epic Military Pass holders include a number of Epic Friend tickets (which offer discounts on walk-up tickets) and Summer scenic lift access. These are all the same benefits as the Epic Pass, and not available for Epic Day pass holders.
The bottom line is this: this is not a cheap pass because Vail stripped most of the value out of it. Quite the contrary — it’s about as close you can get to the flagship Epic Pass product at roughly one-fifth of the cost.
The Deal, Explained
To compare pricing fairly, we are using the lowest publicly offered price for each pass in each season — generally the price announced when Vail Resorts launched pass sales in the spring. That is important because Epic products do not stay at one price all year. Vail periodically raises prices during the sales cycle before eventually taking the passes off the market entirely. Military passes increase too, although not necessarily at exactly the same rate as other Epic products.
Using the lowest offered price gives us the cleanest apples-to-apples comparison.
*The 2024–25 four-day figure is reconstructed from contemporaneous pricing data because we have not yet located an archived launch configurator showing that exact configuration.
The comparison is almost hard to believe — especially for those of us used to paying over $1,000 for a full season pass:
For the 2026–27 season, an eligible Active or Retired Military member could buy an unlimited, unrestricted season pass for $215 at launch.
To put this into context, a civilian buying just four days of broadly comparable Epic access — All Resorts, with peak dates included — paid $534.
The full Epic Pass cost $1,089.
So an Active or Retired Military skier could buy an entire unrestricted season for $319 less than a civilian paid for four unrestricted days.
And the enormous discount isn't new: when Vail introduced the Military Epic Pass for 2018–19, the Active/Retired price was $99 versus $899 for the full Epic Pass.
For the three previous seasons, the Active/Retired Military Pass cost almost exactly 36% as much as the comparable four-day Epic Day Pass. Even after a larger increase for 2026–27, the Military Pass still cost only about 40% as much.
That is difficult to characterize as anything other than extraordinary.
One Day vs. an Entire Season
Another way to look at it is to forget season passes altogether and compare the Military Pass to a regular lift ticket.
The comparison is stark: An eligible Active or Retired Military skier could buy an entire unrestricted season pass for less than the price of one peak day at Vail or Park City.
You don’t need a finance degree to work through that one.
The Deal Is Different for Veterans
Vail Resorts also offers a discounted Epic Military Pass to veterans who did not retire from military service. It’s a good deal, but not the best deal that the Military pass is. Nevertheless, it can still be an excellent deal for the right Veteran skier.
For 2026–27, the Veteran Pass launched at $620 and currently costs $633. Adult Veteran dependents receive the same adult pricing, while eligible dependent children ages 5–17 currently pay $338.
The pass itself is excellent. Veterans receive the same unrestricted access to Vail Resorts-owned mountains, the same Epic Mountain Rewards, Epic Friend Ticket eligibility and other core Military Pass benefits. But at $633, the decision requires a little more thought.
A Veteran Pass may still be considerably cheaper than buying a full Epic Pass. It can also make excellent financial sense for someone planning several days at expensive destination resorts. But unlike the $220 Active/Retired product, it is not an automatic no-brainer. Where you expect to ski, how many days you expect to ski and what other pass products you are considering all matter much more.
Who Qualifies?
This is where the terminology matters.
Active Military and Retired Military are not the same category as Veteran.
Qualifying Active and Retired military members receive the lowest-priced Military Pass and eligible dependents receive that same pricing. We strongly suggest reviewing Vail Resorts’ own qualifications in their FAQ.
2026–27 Pricing Recap
Active/Retired Military members and eligible dependents pay $220. Veteran adults and adult Veteran dependents pay $633. Veteran child dependents, ages 5–17, pay $338.
The program is also broader geographically than many people realize. Qualifying members of the U.S. Uniformed Forces, Canadian Armed Forces and Australian Defence Force can participate, although the precise eligibility and retirement definitions differ by country.
If you are counting on this deal, don’t assume eligibility based simply on having served. Check Vail’s current Military Pass eligibility rules in the FAQ and complete the required verification before purchasing.
Why Does Vail Offer Such a Deep Military Discount?
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. David Recine, a Mountain Training Group instructor with the 10th Mountain Division — the same division Vail co-founder Pete Seibert served in during WWII — during a 2025 training traverse near Vail, Colorado. (Photo: Pfc. Abigail Stewart, 27th Public Affairs Detachment / DVIDS)
The size of the discount raises an obvious question: Why?
This isn’t a 10% courtesy discount or a slightly cheaper affinity pass. The Active/Retired Military price sits in an entirely different universe from Vail’s regular pass pricing. The answer probably starts with Vail’s history. Co-founder Pete Seibert served in the Army's famed 10th Mountain Division during World War II, while co-founder Earl Eaton served as an Army engineer. Vail has a long association with the military, and that history remains part of Vail Resorts’ corporate identity.
We aren’t going to pretend we know how much of today’s military pricing comes from that history, how much comes from a genuine sense of mission, and how much comes from the reputational benefit of offering one of the industry’s most generous military programs. And we’re certainly not going to pretend Vail Resorts is doing this entirely without business considerations. But motives aside, the outcome is hard to argue with: Vail Resorts is putting its money where its mouth is.
For qualifying Active and Retired military families, the company offers access to some of the most expensive ski resorts in North America at a price that is not merely discounted, it is almost unbelievably cheap.
If You Qualify, Buy It
The math is pretty simple. If you:
ski or snowboard;
qualify as an Active or Retired Military member, or an eligible dependent; and
expect to ski more than a token amount this winter,
BUY THE PASS.
You get unlimited, unrestricted access to a large collection of world-class destination resorts and smaller regional mountains. There are no blackout dates. You receive many of the same benefits as someone purchasing the full Epic Pass for more than five times the launch price.
At many of Vail Resorts’ marquee mountains, you can spend more on a single day at the ticket window than the entire Military Pass costs.
There aren’t many purchases in skiing where the math is this lopsided.
If you are a veteran who did not retire from military service, the answer is less automatic. The Veteran Pass is still heavily discounted from the full Epic Pass, and for the right skier it can be excellent value. But at more than $600, where you plan to ski and how often you expect to ski matter considerably more.
But for Active and Retired Military skiers?
This may be the best deal in skiing — if you can get it.
Want the Deeper History?
Vail's military ties run through more than pricing. The Colorado Snowsports Museum & Hall of Fame in Vail Village traces the 10th Mountain Division's connection to the sport in detail — we cover it in our Beaver Creek destination guide.