WOA Season Pass moving forward

Ok Sarah, I stand corrected, I had thought you were one of the biggest supporters of the park before and I thought it was weird that you seemed to be bailing on them.

That said, I think this whole season pass issue is just insane. Sharing of season passes between parks is a GIFT. The parks don't owe you that, I personally don't think it should even exist. A very small percentage of people even realize you can do that with season passes, so whining that they handled the situation poorly, and whining about having to pay gate prices is positively ridiculous. If you really want to visit these other parks so bad, be prepared to pay gate, otherwise, save yourself the headache and the travel money and just don't go. Since when did having to pay for admission become the exception, not the rule? Spoiled ...

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Sarah Jackson said:

The first Six Flags park that I had planed on attending this year (well besides what was WoA) is Great America. I don't have to tell you how much more expensive their passes are!

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Sarah. I didn't mean to say it in a rude way. If your first SF park to hit is SFGAm, give them a call at (847)249-1776 and ask if they will accept your SFWoA pass. I am willing to bet they will take it.

I see your profile says Ohio. If you can, make the trek to SFKK and purchase a pass from them which are dirt cheap.

I don't know much more to tell you. :)

In 2001, I used my SF pass at SFA, SFGAdv, SFDL and SFGAm at the gate. I never went to guest services or anything. Every time they just looked at the pass and let me in. I get the impression that wasn't the correct protocol, but whatever, they allowed it.

Chitown, I never thought what you said was rude in any way. Just saying, the prices are a "little" different :)

Jeff, last year I used my WoA pass at SFGAm and SFKK, and like you not once was I sent to guest services or anything either. I wonder if any one of those ticket takers/checkers will even notice that some of us have WoA passes, or even care that they are WoA passes.

Impulse-ive, why are you being so harsh? I don't get it. Just because someone has a different point of view doesn't mean it is okay to jump all over them.

I don't take the park hopping privileges for granted. However, I do see them as a very nice gesture to the pass holders. Do you have a Six Flags pass? Do you use that pass to get into other Six Flags parks? If so, then you are spoiled too. Next time you go to several different Six Flags parks, why don't you pay gate admission every time. You may have unlimited money, but most of us don't and we like to use this feature as the pass allows us. I don't consider that being spoiled at all. I consider it being thrifty to get the most for my money while visiting other parks and supporting them as well as my home park.

As for being a big supporter of the park in the past, your absolutely right, I was/am. Money dictates how much I can support the park though and if they make the pass price too high, then I can’t support them as I wish I could. *** Edited 3/25/2004 7:11:33 PM UTC by Sarah Jackson***

The reciprocal park access setup at Six Flags is one of the things they do MUCH better than Cedar Fair and Paramount. No go to guest services and get a comp ticket thing, it just works. The magic of centralized processing and barcode readers...

(Which is why I'm also willing to bet that already-processed WoA passes will work at the other parks. Unless they go into their computers and say "season passes with these serial numbers are NOT valid", the barcode reader is going to just say "Hey, 2004 pass, have fun")

I don't think they do it "better" in terms of business though. There's no accounting. How can they know the impact of using the passes around the chain when they don't even scan them? Heck, they never scanned my pass in 2001 at SFWoA, so how do they know the frequency at which visitors use their passes? Or even that it's a valid pass and not forged?

Considering the frequency I used CF or Paramount passes at other parks, I don't find it really inconvenient to have to go through guest services.

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Impulse-ive said:
That said, I think this whole season pass issue is just insane...Spoiled ...

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With all due respect, I think your being ridiculous.

This is taken directly from the six flags website. "Unlimited visits to all 19 Six Flags theme parks nationwide."

A gift? They dont treat it as such, they just want you in their parks spending money...a gift he says. :)

They are handling the situation poorly. There are hoards of confused people, wondering what will happen next. I have not received a single straight answer, even after six phone calls accross the country. But what else is new, its six flags. What do I expect.

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Jeff said:
There's no accounting. How can they know the impact of using the passes around the chain when they don't even scan them?

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I was really surprised at their lack of caring about who is coming/going and spending money at their parks too. I would think they would offer small discounts at food counters just so they can track how much money sp holders are actually spending on their visits.

*** Edited 3/25/2004 7:21:39 PM UTC by eightdotthree***

My 2003 pass was mis-printed, and so never scanned, though every park tried to. Of the six parks I visited, four admissions hosts typed my number in by hand at the gate, waited for the "go" signal, and then let me through. One couldn't scan it, but asked her manager if those passes were acceptable, and let me through with no accounting. One tried to scan a couple of times, couldn't, shrugged, and just waved me through.

So, at least as of last year, SFI is trying harder to figure out who is coming where, but the technique is applied inconsistently...

Interesting -- last year every Six Flags park I visited, with the exception of Great America for the Coasterbuzz event, scanned my pass. I guess I'm giving the chain too much credit, because I always figured that with the data they obtain in scanning the pass they DO have all the accounting information Jeff speaks of.
*** Edited 3/25/2004 7:38:36 PM UTC by GregLeg***

All the Six Flags parks I have been to always scan my Season Pass when I enter, even SFWoA did. I have never got into SFGAm without them scanning my pass first. Im surprised they would ever let you in any of the parks without scanning it first.

Most of the SF parks I've been to (most recently SFMM), what they've done is yanked out a clipboard and written some info from my (SFoG) season pass onto some spreadsheet...

As for data *collecting*, everyone does THAT....analyzing the data is what makes it USEFUL...or at least that's the FUN part...;)

Oh NO, now ALL of you know what a geek I really am...:)

This is disappointing/confusing for many of us but just hold on because the site will be up soon and I'm sure CF will keep us informed on their side. All I can say about season passes - Last year my dad accidentally handed the gate person his BJ's card and they scanned it and he went in. He didn't even use his pass. I'm wondering how serious another Six Flags park is going to be about denying someone admission to the park. I'm sure someone at SFGAm would be willing to help you. Only so many people that have SFWoA passes are going to be travelling already. I just don't see how they could shut you down.

Assuming that they have turnstiles, they could just figure out the number of season passes by subtracting the gate purchases from the gate numbers. The remaining number would be season or employee passes.

It still doesn't make sense to me not to scan them simply so you'd have a good demographic survey. See how many people are "jumping parks," how many people use their passes over ten times, etc.

However, that could also open up the gate to fraud and/or theft.

All I know is that every time I went SFGAM my Season Pass was scanned. Even on Both Coasterbuzz and ACE Conventions. I am sure that some season passes are not scanned and that is because they have lazy workers. Most Six Flags Parks have been upgraded so that they can scan your pass, but I suspect that some parks are just too lazy to scan them.

Carlo