New Prestige Passes

That's the same boat I'm in, platinum this year. Wanted to do a road trip or 2, but so far it's just been 1 KI trip. There's still time I guess, and Winterfest later. I ended up going with with gold/flp/dining/drink for next year. The prestige benefits just didn't sound all that useful. Didn't use early entry or vip areas at all this year. Parking's not hard to find later in the day. Flp is redundant with the wristband, and these past 2 weekends reinforced how nice it is to have.

Yep - I posted something along the same lines at Coasterbuzz yesterday. I agree their pricing is strange.

Given the lousy state of Early Entry the past few years, that my family mainly visits CP, that they jacked up the price of Platinum by about $50 and kept Gold the same, and that I have other expenses/time commitments with kids sports, I'm seriously considering dropping from Platinum to Gold next year. I don't really feel like Platinum is overpriced or a bad deal at $250 (I think I've even suggested that as a price point). It's just that Gold is a great deal and meets my family's needs at a savings of over $700 for my family of four when you factor in Platinum meal plans costing more than Gold meal plans.

I have no clue how attendance at CP has been this year. My personal guess is that attendance is flat or down slightly, but the park FEELS more busy due to operational issues. If attendance is soft, I wouldn't think it's due to admission prices, but the hotel and gas prices probably aren't helping. Even with cheap admission, trips to CP have increased in cost significantly for the overnight guest. Maybe TTD being down has had some impact or not getting any major new addition in the last couple years. Or the poor operations are taking a toll. I'm sure they'll engineer a guest survey to tell them exactly what they want to hear nomatter what the case.

Yeah, what’s interesting is if the Gold was priced fair at ~$140, then the Platinum starts looking more appealing and easier to justify. Even by raising the price of the gold I wonder how many more Platinum’s upgrades they would get.

With the price difference the two strategies contradicting though.

1.With gold it seems they want to encourage as many visits as possible and drive in park spending with enhanced food and other spending options.

2.With Platinum it’s the opposite with them apparently wanting to drive revenue with a higher gate initially if you think about visiting another park (and hopefully keep attendance manageable at those parks)

If I’m an exec targeting an area like Dublin Oh (affluent suburb NW of Columbus) and cheering for strategy 1, do I really care which park they are visiting once I got them into a season pass? I think by offering more parks for a similarly low price you’d encourage multiple visits to both parks instead of what 1 park might limit.

Overall I think option 2 with a quality service and good park food would still drive spending and encourage repeats visits, but CP specifically seems to be going with option 1 while chainwide they want to limit you to a single park.

Of course, the idea might be if someone is traveling to multiple parks they are big spenders and aren’t price sensitive, but the platinum at this price differential seem to be catering twords the more hardcore enthusiast.

Has anyone attempted to redeem the free bring a friend ticket that comes with a 2023 Gold or Platinum renewal? I renewed from Platinum to Gold today for the four of us and was expecting to see the bring a friend vouchers come through with the others, but nothing.

Hoping it's just added on there and it can just be redeemed at the gate with the pass and the extra person, but also kind of thinking it will be a clusterf%^& involving going to guest services, giving order numbers, etc and having someone do an override. My son was going to bring his friend down for the weekend in a few weeks.

It's like they never quite get their systems to match up with what they are marketing and so it's constant angst for guests and employees there.

On another note, when I went to renew to Gold, I received an offer to do Platinum instead and one of the benefits listed was get Fastlane+ for the price of Fastlane. So I'm not sure of the status of this benefit. We've heard it both ways and we don't know which is correct. Another example of the messaging not matching up I guess. I guess if you're counting on that benefit, go and pretend you're going to buy a Gold and take a screenshot of the upgrade offer.

Not saying this is the case, but one could argue that going from Platinum to Gold counts as a brand new pass, because you're not renewing at your current tier, perhaps?

If that benefit isn't offered to new passholders, that could be a reason. I'm not pretending to know, just brainstorming.

I renewed from Platinum to Prestige+ and did not get bring-a-friend vouchers either. I'm thinking (and hoping) they were added to the pass but given their IT about these things, who knows? I haven't attempted to use them yet. I can confirm though that I was able to use the lounge without issue last Sunday and was getting the 15% discount instead of 10% so the Prestige+ perks seemed to load OK.

It allowed me to "renew" and the vouchers I received for the passes say "Renewal" so I'm not so worried that I won't get it in the end. More so just that it will be a hassle for me and the employees at the park.

Another weird thing I noticed. My CP mobile app still had 2021 on all the passes even though they were renewed for 2022 so I decided to remove/re-add them. They were added as 2022 (not 2023) Gold passes already on the app even though we should still be Platinum for the rest of this season. I just find that funny since last year when we renewed my daughter's pass from Pre-K to Platinum, they told us she could not get Platinum benefits until the following season.

If I log in to their website, it shows us as Platinum for 2022 and then Gold for 2023 exactly as I'd expect. So maybe on the back end, everything is correct, but on the mobile app, it isn't really giving the whole story.

On my mobile app, they still read 2020 Platinum passes. I didn't remove/re-add though. On another odd note, my visit count reset to zero after I renewed. Everything seems to work though so I'm just going to leave it.

Scott Cameron said:

On my mobile app, they still read 2020 Platinum passes. I didn't remove/re-add though. On another odd note, my visit count reset to zero after I renewed. Everything seems to work though so I'm just going to leave it.

My visit count on the KI mobile app did that to me where it reset my visit count to zero. I went April 23rd, and a month later, my visit cougar KI was zero. I went to get a the end of June for three days and everything with the visit count on the visit count part of the app worked fin the end of June.

The part that I’m wondering about with the passes is if Tricks N Treats/Halloween Haunt and Winterfest will be included with the prestige+ pass chain-wide or just at the park of purchase?

what is "preferred entrance?" Can't find anything on the website about it.

One of the entrances will have a gate marked for Prestige pass only. I’d assume it’s main gate and it’s to save time waiting in line. I can see it as a benefit on the busiest of days.

Personally, I would rather have a Prestige Pass dedicated line at the Ticket Booth for recieving the FastLane voucher. Or additional places in the park to redeem.

I've been waiting for a scan only line for a while. Put a turnstile or something on it. Passes, tickets, reentry slips, anything automated. If you need to have a conversation with someone go to a normal line. It seemed like it was working for the tollbooths, but those get shut down early now.

I guess good for them for figuring out how to charge more for it.

that park has so many VIP areas/lines/events, it's more like going to a concert now. But without bands playing.

Well, I guess if you build it, they will come.

They do have bands now, with a few good performances. Overall just seems like a cheaper version of their normal live entertainment without the sets, costumes, dancers, etc. But that's an unrelated gripe.

It seems odd that the Cedar Point did a blog post about the new passes but yet the only passes available for purchase on the park's website are the Gold and Platinum. No option for the Prestige. Am I missing something?

^ If I had to guess, and it is only a guess, right now it is just available for current, select pass holders until September 5th. At that point it may go on sale for all, possibly with a higher price tag.

Or maybe it is a limited sale, just to see the uptake. That is less likely.

I thought about the limited access but then why post a blog outlining all of the wonderful perks that the Prestige comes with it the pass is not for sale to everyone?

Valid point. So probably will be on sale to all after 9/5. Although right now you can click the link on the blog and get to the Pretige Pass purchase page.

I did not realize that. Sure enough - you can get to the Prestige page by clicking on the links in the blog. I guess they are so prestigious that they cannot be put on the same page as the other passes.