Spirit Airlines Experiment
Some of you are probably already laughing. The title’s enough for any anti-Spirit traveler to wallow in their confirmation bias cave. About a year or so ago, my family initiated our Spirit Airlines experiment, genuinely intrigued to see how it would go. Last year, and as it turns out, up until yesterday, my family and I had never flown on Spirit. We’ve come full circle in one year, with most of that circle completed in the last day. But our decision to give up on Spirit isn’t purely based on one experience. Even if yesterday’s flight was perfect, we would probably be done with them, anyway. Let me explain.
It Started with a Credit Card…
…like much does in our points and travel hobby. Back in early 2023, my wife was eligible for another Bank of America credit card welcome offer. BoA’s credit card application rules are somewhat stringent, but we’ve found approvals fairly predictable when we precisely follow them.
My wife had most all Bank of America cards she was interested in by then. We also don’t participate in their Preferred Rewards program, as we prefer our savings and investments in other entities. No cards were jumping out, but we knew we wanted to keep playing a high-turnover, aggressive credit card game to maximize rewards with Bank of America. Taking into account the bank’s rules, not applying would mean giving up rewards, and more importantly, time.
Spirit is one of the few airlines who flies to Orlando, one of our frequent travel destinations, non-stop. Southwest does, but not every day, and we weren’t that interested in bothering with Frontier, the only other option. And Shawn has loved Spirit for many years. We identified the Free Spirit Travel More World Elite Mastercard, and my wife received an immediate approval. She earned 50k bonus Spirit points by spending $1k, and an additional 2k on the grocery store spend to get there. For the next 10 months or so, 52,023 Spirit points slept in my wife’s account.
Engage Procrastination Mode
In terms of travel, we sort of plan. Many in our hobby enjoy immediately booking 11+ months ahead of time whenever availability opens. That’s not us. We have general travel goals but don’t usually start booking stuff until six months out, tops. We mapped out our vague travel plans for the school year in the early fall. Between the fall and and even now, the locations and timeframes have changed slightly. Subsequently-announced school commitments required more schedule tweaks. In January, we noticed our March travel plan wouldn’t work out, so we had to call an audible.
A compressed, three-night, two-day Disney World trip on a long weekend sounded great. We had previously taken extended jaunts there, and the short version intrigued us. About 45 days before the prospective trip, I looked at flight options. Apparently, some others had the same idea as us, but they were more punctual. Non-stop Southwest options in Wanna Get Away were in the mid-30k range one-way. Negative Ghostrider, the pattern is full.
The next best option? Spirit, at 13k points one way. That’s high by their standards; I’d routinely seen under 3k in other timeframes. But I found the symmetry satisfying. Overpaying 13k per head for our family of four meant using 52k Spirit points, with only 23 left. I booked without flinching.
Opting into a Mess
Having never flown Spirit, we knew we were signing up for the unknown. The experiment could blow up in my face. Open mindedness won out. In the process, we knew we were opting into a mess, or at least, the potential of one. And we got it.
Of course, the only non-stop Spirit flight back home from MCO was early in the morning. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency MCO the night before, promptly cleared security early the next morning, and arrived in an earthy concourse and food court area. Benches were everywhere, but unfortunately, vacancies were not, as countless prone bodies with jackets for heads took up everything. But the concourse was the Chelsea Lounge compared to the gate area.
Masses of people swallowed up the gate area – three or so gates, it turned out. As our flight was boarding (based on the time and the gate’s screen), we queued up in the Zone 2 area we were assigned. After several more minutes of nothing, I noticed my family of four was entirely surrounded by a quite tall group of early-20’s males with SEC haircuts. By some miracle, I was able to see through Hurricane Bro to notice the gate next to ours. That gate’s board stated, “Frontier Airlines, San Juan, Delayed.” Quickly realizing it’s Spring Break season, we moved on from our poor location under Spirit’s not-so-helpful signage.
Rocket Science
Boarding a plane is apparently too much for some Spirit employees. Workers boarded passengers without any announcements. Primarily for peace of mind, I opted to pay about $35 in advance for assigned seats for our family, and I’m glad I did. I’ve never seen more seemingly-unnecessary seat shuffling on a plane. Spirit makes Southwest seem like a charter flight.
Still, the aircraft looked and felt new; Spirit’s spiffy interior surprised me. And the seat wasn’t as uncomfortable as I expected. Flight attendants were perky and helpful, but that only goes so far.
Unsurprisingly, all that shifting of passengers to different seats (among other things) created what the purser termed a “seating discrepancy.” He first blamed this on a lap child sitting in a regular seat, but that wasn’t it. With every seat occupied, flight attendants had to manually check each passenger’s boarding pass. We took off about an hour later than scheduled.
Spirit Airlines Experiment – Conclusion
The single flight experience notwithstanding, we were probably done, anyway. Through our Spirit Airlines experiment, we had consumed virtually all of my wife’s Spirit point balance. Plus, we determined holding the card a second year didn’t make sense for us, and she subsequently closed it.
I feel about Spirit the way I feel about oysters. Certain people are way into them, while others aren’t. Regardless, I wanted to experience it for myself. I gave it a try, and now I’m done. I’d rather have the comfort food I’m familiar with – a legacy carrier – even if I’m eating more vegetables in the form of a hub connection. Outside of flying Breeze, I’ll do better avoiding the kitchen nightmare that is the discount airline end of a domestic airport.
Do you fly Spirit? Why or why not?
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[…] “About a year or so ago, my family initiated our Spirit Airlines experiment, genuinely intrigued to see how it would go. Last year, and as it turns out, up until yesterday, my family and I had never flown on Spirit. We’ve come full circle in one year, with most of that circle completed in the last day. But our decision to give up on Spirit isn’t purely based on one experience. Even if yesterday’s flight was perfect, we would probably be done with them, anyway.” ➡️ Read more […]
Flew Spirit just once, one-way Chicago to MSP. Carefully researched max carry-on size (which they were constantly changing at that time, as part of what seemed to be a deliberate passenger-harrassment campaign) so was able to avoid baggage fees. Booked my flight in person at the airport to avoid their egregious “online booking fee.” After all that fiddling around it DID turn out to be the cheapest option. And the flight was fine. I’m not tall enough to care about the cramped seating, and it’s hard to really mess up a 45-minute direct flight with bad service. But I really don’t feel comfortable flying on an airline that makes hostility towards their passengers part of their marketing message.
SPIRIT ME AWAY- Have flown Spirit afew times. Will onlyuse it if first two rows are available. With boarding times starting 45 mins before flight, I may as well be comfy. Watching the boarding process makes it obvious why.
Spirit is great if you travel once a year or less. It gets you there…. which when you consider an aluminum tube transported you 1000 miles in a matter of hours…. it isn’t so bad
That being said…. I pretty much do anything I can to avoid it
My last Spirit flight was my last with Spirit. Extremely small seat and no leg room (I’m 5’10”). To cap it off I mistakenly thought luggage was max 50 pounds like the other real airline carriers. Stupid me. It’s Spirit! 46 pounds was 6 pounds over Spirits limit of 40. Well $150 later the budget airline I booked to save money actually costs the same but less comfortable.
Looks like Spirit won that one, Paulie, but I get why you won’t give them another chance.
When you book a ticket with Spirit online all conditions are clearly stated. Your lack of attention to details is what costed you money . Hopefully you learned your lesson.
use to fly them on a regular basis and always paid for the emergency aisle ( more room)
the last time I flew them, they tried to change my seat to a regular seat ( no extra leg room) because they said they needed my seat for someone else.
I asked if it was a medical emergency or similar and they said no, but they could move me because they are within their rights.
I told them I paid for the seat, months in advance, and they would have to have the captain explain this to me.
After a 20 minute standoff, they moved the guy next to me.
The seat was for a friend of theirs as I later found out.
That was a number of years ago and I have NOT flown Spirit since.
Their loss, not mine
I fly frequently, mostly with legacy carriers. Yet, I have flown with Spirit on several occasions and have never experienced anything like what you are desribing. They’re fine. It’s basic transportation unless you pay for more, should you choose to do so. It appears that your needs and/or desires are for more than basic transportation, which is fine, but, then, choose wisely.
I’m glad Spirit’s still working out for you, when necessary, Ron!
Feel terrible for you… not. I have flown Spirit and Frontier countless times, never had a problem with them other than a couple of delays with no impact to my plans.
So you’re a late booker, fly during spring break and find out it’s a mess. Of course it will be. And yes, I do share your thoughts about the issues some gate agents have with boarding. On a Frontier flight out of Miami boarding was done by a ramp agent so there’s that.
You say that never flown Spirit, you were going into the unknown. Come on! You are a travel blogger and you’re gonna tell me you never heard stories or researched about them? And that’s why I feel terrible for you… not.
Exactly. But each airline no matter what has had all that as well. Please.
Spirit is 50-50. Sometimes they fly and sometimes they cancel! Vouchers are worthless as they really can’t be used easily. They are also impossible to get in touch with by phone. I fly them because they fly direct from TPA to ACY. Also the seats are like sitting in a bridgechair for a few hours. I have nothing good to say but I will still fly them because of ACY. I also forget to mentions they changed their flight times to like 5 AM. Not good!