Vail, Alterra, Boyne, and Powdr Hit With New Antitrust Lawsuit Alleging Ski Pass Price-Fixing

Three skiers have filed a new federal class-action lawsuit accusing four of the biggest ski resort operators in the United States of conspiring to raise and stabilize prices for ski passes, lift tickets, and other destination ski products. The 84-page complaint, filed Wednesday, August 5, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, names Vail Resorts, Alterra Mountain Company, Boyne Resorts, Powdr Corp., ski-industry research and consulting firm RRC Associates, and the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) as defendants. The plaintiffs allege that the companies exchanged confidential and competitively sensitive information, including pricing, revenue, operating costs, capacity, and skier data, and used that information to reduce competition and keep prices artificially high.

The lawsuit is Green et al. v. Vail Resorts Inc. et al., Case No. 1:26-cv-03555-CYC. The complaint was filed on August 5 and seeks class-action status on behalf of thousands of ski customers. As with any newly filed complaint, these are allegations that have not been tested or proven in court. The three plaintiffs are Nicholas Green of Minnesota, James “Scott” Douglas of Colorado, and Joseph Goad of Colorado.

• Related: Antitrust Lawsuit Alleges Vail Resorts and Alterra Inflated Lift Ticket Prices

According to the complaint, Green purchased four destination ski packages from Big Sky Resort, owned by Boyne. Douglas purchased packages from Copper Mountain, owned by Powdr. Goad purchased packages from both Vail and Alterra, including the Epic Pass and Ikon Pass. The plaintiffs are seeking to represent a nationwide class of consumers who they say paid inflated prices for “Destination Ski Packages” — a term the complaint defines broadly to include multi-mountain season passes, daily lift tickets, equipment rentals, lessons, and other resort goods and services.

The complaint argues the U.S. destination ski market is unusually concentrated: of roughly 485 active U.S. ski areas, the plaintiffs say only 32 qualify as “Destination Ski Resorts” — yet those resorts account for a majority of U.S. skier traffic. Vail and Alterra, the complaint alleges, control all but two of those 32, either directly or through access arrangements.

At the center of the lawsuit is RRC Associates, a Colorado-based research and consulting firm that works closely with ski resorts and the NSAA. The plaintiffs allege that, beginning at least in January 2020, Vail, Alterra, Boyne, and Powdr provided RRC with non-public information covering revenue, costs, capacity, pricing, lift tickets, season passes, rentals, and lessons. RRC then allegedly incorporated that data into reports circulated to NSAA members — giving competing resorts insight into one another’s businesses that the plaintiffs say informed pricing and strategy decisions industry-wide.

The complaint further alleges that RRC’s private consulting relationships with companies including Vail and Alterra let those companies receive pricing recommendations shaped by non-public competitor data.

“Resort Defendants, with the encouragement and enablement of NSAA and RRC, joined in an agreement to share confidential and proprietary information with their competitors, through these intermediaries, for the purpose, and with the effect, of fixing, raising, maintaining, and stabilizing the prices for Destination Ski Packages.”

The plaintiffs allege that Vail, Alterra, Boyne and Powdr, with what they describe as the “encouragement and enablement” of the NSAA and RRC, agreed to share confidential information with competitors through those intermediaries. They claim the information was ultimately used to “fix, raise, maintain, and stabilize” prices for destination ski packages.

The lawsuit also points to Aspenware, an e-commerce and pricing technology platform co-owned by Alterra. According to the complaint, Alterra, Boyne, and Powdr all use Aspenware’s commerce platform and pricing module — meaning the companies operate on a common set of data and reporting fields, which the plaintiffs argue made information sharing more efficient. The complaint alleges the three companies used Aspenware’s dynamic-pricing tools to adjust prices based on demand, inventory, and competitor behavior.

Vail doesn’t use Aspenware, according to the complaint, but the plaintiffs allege Vail runs its own comparable dynamic-pricing system.

The complaint leans heavily on the parallel rise of the two dominant multi-mountain passes. Per the filing, the Ikon Pass rose from $949 (2019-20) to $1,399 for 2026-27, with the Ikon Base Pass rising from $649 to $949 over the same span. Excluding Vail’s pandemic-era pricing reset, the Epic Pass rose from $783 (2021-22) to $1,089 for 2026-27, with the Epic Local Pass rising from $583 to $809.

The plaintiffs also cite peak daily lift ticket increases exceeding 55% at flagship resorts, including Vail ($219 → $356), Steamboat ($215 → $339), Park City ($209 → $351), and Big Sky ($181 → $285). They argue the similarity of these increases across competing resorts points to coordinated conduct rather than ordinary market competition.

The complaint alleges that resort executives discussed sensitive business topics — including pricing, season-pass strategy, and capacity management — at NSAA conferences between 2019 and 2026.

Beyond pricing, the lawsuit also challenges the broader consolidation of the destination ski industry, arguing that Vail and Alterra’s acquisitions over the past two decades — some allegedly structured to fall below thresholds that would trigger automatic DOJ or FTC review — have concentrated market power in ways that reduced competition. The complaint puts the four resort defendants’ combined share of the destination ski market at more than 81% — a number the lawsuit considers “conservative.”

The lawsuit also references the Climate Collaborative Charter formed by Vail, Alterra, Boyne, and Powdr in 2021, arguing that pandemic-era financial pressure and climate concerns gave the companies additional incentive to cooperate rather than compete — while noting that legitimate cooperation on issues like climate or safety wouldn’t have required exchanging detailed financial data.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to certify the case as a nationwide class action and are seeking monetary damages, restitution, disgorgement of profits, and an injunction against the alleged conduct — potentially including divestiture of assets. Damages could be trebled under antitrust law if the case succeeds, and the plaintiffs have demanded a jury trial.

As of this writing, representatives for Vail Resorts, Alterra, Boyne, Powdr, and RRC Associates had not publicly responded to the allegations. The NSAA told Reuters that it is aware of the lawsuit and reviewing the claims.

This isn’t the first antitrust suit to hit Vail and Alterra this year. In March 2026, four skiers filed a separate class action, filed as Goloja v. Vail Resorts (Case No. 1:26-cv-01191) , alleging the companies illegally bundled resort access through their season passes to suppress competition. That case is distinct from this new filing and remains pending; Vail and Alterra have denied those allegations, and their motion to dismiss has not yet been resolved.

• Related: Vail Resorts Files Motion to Dismiss Antitrust Class Action Lawsuit

This new case is considerably broader — naming four resort operators plus their shared data and trade association infrastructure, and alleging a coordinated scheme spanning pricing, information-sharing, industry meetings, and consolidation strategy, rather than a single bundling practice.

For skiers, the case zeroes in on one of the defining shifts of the last decade in the sport: the rise of multi-mountain mega passes and the shrinking number of independently operated destination resorts. Whether that shift reflects aggressive competition, natural industry evolution, or something more coordinated is now a question for the courts.