Rant

I'm irritated.

I'm probably just going to keep my almost $800. So there!

The Aspen Recreation Center has a discounted annual family pass available for members of the the Aspen Chamber Resort Association.

This is a very nice benefit which ACRA members can offer to their employees (although ACRA membership is not cheap).

So far, so good.

Now, if you go to the Aspen Recreation Center website, there is absolutely no mention of the Chamber discount. The fee for an annual family pass for an Aspen resident is $917.

So, you travel to the Chamber website where you find that the discounted ACRA fee for an annual family pass to the ARC is $756. You get a check from your employer for this amount because this is the advertised price. You go over to ACRA to get the voucher which proves that you are a Chamber member and then you go to the ARC to get your family pass.

You are told by the staff member at the ARC that the cost for a Chamber member is in fact $780.

Since you were planning on using the Aspen Recreation Center's facilities, you didn't bring your wallet (didn't want to tempt any opportunistic thieves in the locker room). You point out that $756 is the advertised price and even so, you offer to pay them the difference the next time you come in.

No dice.

Since you were unlucky enough to come in on a very busy Saturday afternoon when they were hosting a Fall Face-off hockey thing, the place is a zoo and there is nobody in charge.

So you leave disgusted and feeling like at $759 or $780, you're no longer interested in giving them your money. You go home, recheck all the aforementioned websites to ensure that it was not your mistake and call back to the ARC to leave a message for someone in charge to call you on Monday.

The apologetic staff member with whom you dealt earlier tells you that she asked someone else there and he told her that ACRA always screws up the ARC's prices on its website.

Your thought is well, then, why doesn't the ARC post the ACRA prices on its website????? That's what SkiCo does and there's never any issue there!

Since it's a small town, you are acquainted with the person in charge at the ARC who is going to call you back and you are on a first name basis with the president of ACRA. You will definitely be expressing your displeasure to both of them.

It's a good thing, though, that it's Saturday and you won't be able to reach either one of them until Monday. You probably need a day and a half to calm down.