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How to get discounted lift tickets and snow reports

Liftopia's well-designed and free iOS app can save you money this ski season.

Matt Elliott Senior Editor
Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.
Expertise Laptops, desktops, all-in-one PCs, streaming devices, streaming platforms
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Matt Elliott
2 min read

Just in time for ski (and snowboard) season, Liftopia has released an iOS app, which brings you the ability to get snow reports and purchase discounted lift tickets on your iDevice.

I have used the Liftopia Web site for years to hunt for deals, whether I'm looking for discounted tickets in New Hampshire and our neighboring states or planning a trip out West. Most resorts offer some sort of deal if you purchase a ticket online at least one day in advance. Now, this same functionality is offered in a well-designed and free Liftopia iOS app.

When you launch the app, it'll ask you to allow it to send you push notifications and know your location. If you say yes to the latter, the app is able to display nearby resorts. The app has four buttons along the bottom edge: Nearby, Search, Favorites, and My Stuff.

Liftopia uses your iPhone's location services to display deals for nearby resorts. Screenshot by Matt Elliott

On the Nearby screen, Liftopia presents a list of resorts, with the location and number of deals available for each. To the right of each resort, the app tells you if the lifts are spinning and how much you can save from a full-price ticket. Tap on a resort, and you'll get information about the terrain and amenities, a brief description of the mountain, and user reviews. There is also a Directions button, which opens a route on Google Maps, and a button to sign up for alerts for your region. (You can manage your alerts on the My Stuff screen, and you can log in to your existing Liftopia profile or create a new one here, too.)

Tap on Get Directions to open Google Maps to find your way to the hill. Screenshot by Matt Elliott

There are three buttons at the top of each resort page: Deals, Conditions, and Map. Tap on Deals to see a list of deals, and tap on a deal to open up a calendar view to see the days a particular deal is offered. When you tap on a day on the calendar, a Buy Now buttons appears for that deal, and you'll then be able to pick up your ticket with a voucher right on your phone.

You can purchase discounted lift tickets right from your phone. Screenshot by Matt Elliott

The Conditions page shows how many lifts, acres, and trails are open along with elevation and vertical drop measurements, the base depth, and the amount of snowfall in the last 24 hours.

Each resort's profile shows you how much of the mountain is open and how much snow it has received in the past 24 hours. Screenshot by Matt Elliott

You can create a favorites list by tapping on the small button in the upper-right corner of a resort page. The button features a mountain icon with a small plus sign next to it. After it becomes a favorite, the plus sign becomes a check mark. From the Favorites page, you can tap the Edit button to rearrange your list of favorites or delete resorts from the list.

You can keep an eye on your favorite spots on one screen. Screenshot by Matt Elliott

With as little lead time as one day, Liftopia can save you money on lift tickets this season and help you find the snow. If you have an alternate source of lift ticket discounts, I'm all ears. Please share in the comments below.