Emilie Noble has been skiing Whistler Blackcomb (WB) for the better part of 25 years. That is, until a knee injury kept her on the sidelines this ski season.
A 30-year-old local physio, Noble suffered a torn ACL and MCL last June, weeks after she had already put down a deposit on her Epic Pass for this winter.
Months out from the start of the ski season, Noble wasn’t initially sure if she would be healed up in time to hit the slopes. She said it took a few months following her injury for doctors to determine she wouldn’t be able to ski in 2024-25.
Problem is, Whistler Blackcomb’s parent company, Vail Resorts, has a policy requiring guests to submit their request for a refund within 30 days of an injury, illness or other “qualifying personal event.”
Noble admitted she wasn’t aware of the 30-day policy before her injury.
"They do have it on their website, but in the middle of the summer, who’s checking that when you’re debilitated and hurt?” she asked.
Even if she had known about the policy beforehand, Noble said it still wouldn’t have accounted for the period of uncertainty before she knew for sure she’d be unable to ski this season.
“To me, it feels very much like the little person is being taken advantage of by a big corporation that has no empathy for real life or real people,” she said. “[The policy] feels very rigid, especially when I can’t speak to an actual person who has empathy for the difficulty I’m going through. It doesn’t feel like a reasonable way to treat a customer coming back year over year.”
Vail Resorts’ economic model relies heavily on early-bird sales, offering a level of financial predictability in a ski industry grappling with the effects of climate change and shifting travel patterns. For the skiing public, that emphasis comes with strict cutoff dates and inflated pricing if they are missed.
“Passes are available starting in the previous season (they go on sale around March for the following winter season) and are not refundable or transferable. Purchasing earlier comes with more benefits and lower costs. Passes increase in price as the season nears,” a spokesperson for Vail Resorts wrote in a statement, noting there are options pre-season for passholders who want to defer payment as well.
“Once the $49 deposit is paid on the Pass, the guest has committed to pay for the remainder of the non-refundable Pass they chose (this is not a new policy).”
For Noble, the headaches didn’t end there. Unable to ski, she refused to pay the roughly $1,300 remaining on the balance for her Epic Pass. Then, Vail Resorts began threatening to deactivate her parents’ season’s passes, despite Noble herself never having received a single message from the company requesting payment. (She still hasn’t.)
In a Feb. 8 email to Noble’s parents, Steve and Sue, that was shared with Pique, a Whistler Blackcomb employee explained their passes were placed on a “hotlist” while their daughter’s pass remained unpaid.
“If the final payment for the pass is paid for, then your passes will be activated for further use throughout the season,” the email went on.
The Nobles said they were given a deadline of Feb. 14 to pay the remainder, before finding their passes had already been deactivated when they arrived the week prior to ski Whistler Blackcomb.
“It feels totally unfair. Come at me, don’t come at my family,” Noble said. “It doesn’t seem like something that should be happening here in Whistler in our small town.”
Asked about the deactivation of Noble’s parents’ passes, a Vail Resorts spokesperson chalked it up to administrative error.
“It is not in our policy to require them to pay for their child’s Pass with the risk of theirs being deactivated,” the email read. “The reason it defaulted to this was due to their family falling under one profile—which we’ve since separated, and rectified the issue with the parents regaining access to the mountains, without any issues.”
The Nobles confirmed their passes have been reactivated, but only after they were able to speak with an understanding Whistler Blackcomb manager in person.
“This is the kind of service we’re missing now with Vail: Face-to-face customer service from someone who actually cares,” Noble said.
As for the remaining balance on her Epic Pass? Noble said she has appealed the company’s decision twice, to no avail.
“I’ve appealed it twice and it has been twice so far they have not responded to me,” Noble said. “Are they still going to keep asking me for payment? I don’t know. But I would love them to upgrade their policies.”
