Excuse me, I'm still missing your explanation about the benefits which you get from buying passes?
I fail to see them, given that one free pass a day may provide around or more than 1,000 XPs to your CC, while the second - purchased - pass will usually only give 240 or 440 XPs, and block the next free pass.
In the light of this, even only 9 cr for 14 XP of a CTTH seem plain irrational to me.
Furthermore, it's each player's deliberate decision to buy a pass or not, thus, if it appears too expensive in a certain situation, simply don't!
To me, as a player and as a CC owner, any spendings on passes are squandered.