What Is Happening To Spirit Airlines Cardholders?
On a recent MTM Travel podcast episode I said I could not remember the last time a major US carrier went out of business. We had thought it had been a few decades when we were talking about it live, and that ended up being true. Twenty years ago airline co-branded credit cards were not nearly as popular as they are now. That means there are a lot of people wondering, what is happening to Spirit Airlines cardholders? My wife just so happens to be one of them after all!
Our Cardmember Story
Readers that follow the site, or podcast, know that my wife grabbed the Spirit Airlines credit card earlier this year. It was a part of a larger round off applications that brought in over $4,000, 230K airline miles, 112K Bilt Rewards & $1,800 in credits.
The Spirit Airlines credit card application was for a specific flight, as a part of a larger spring break trip to Bermuda. Everyone else wanted an arm and a leg to fly Detroit to NYC, but Spirit was charging a much more reasonable 10K – 12.5K per person for their flights. I didn’t want to transfer Bilt points over to Spirit just in case they went out of business, or there were issues with our flight. The last thing I wanted was to take the most valuable point out there and lose it to a Spirit closure.
My plan worked out to perfection, although it was sketchy for a little bit there. We were able to get the miles on the first statement and lock in our flights for March (once they dropped in price). The flights took place a few weeks before Spirit’s complete meltdown too.
Bank Of America’s Initial Response To The Closure
Once Spirit Airlines went under I took the kind of wait and see approach with my wife’s card. Doctor of Credit was reporting that people were successful getting the annual fee refunded if they called in and escalated to a supervisor. I had hoped they would end up doing it on their own at some point, and I assumed would likely be legally forced to.
I also wasn’t overly worried about it since we got amazing value for our annual fee thanks to the welcome offer. It had only been a few months since we grabbed the card, so even if we got nothing we were way ahead. If we were cardmembers for multiple years that would have been a different story. The perks would have been a major reason we kept the card past the first year in that scenario. Well, with Spirit Airlines going out of business there are no more card perks to be had.
My Wife Finally Calls
I decided to burn some of those super (the most) valuable wife points and get her to call Bank of America to see what they would say about an annual fee refund. I told her to switch to one of their no annual fee products while on the phone if she could. Bank of America has been instructing people to continue to use their Spirit Airlines cards in the meantime. They have communicated via email that the rewards would be rolled over to whatever new product they ended up with. I figured we might as well speed up that process.
When she called the rep informed her that they were already working on it. Everyone should be getting an annual fee refund soon. Then they will be transitioned into a no fee Bank of America card to take the Spirit card’s place. I guess I should have saved those wife points and waited just a little bit longer for them to give the credits anyway!
What Is Happening To Spirit Airlines Cardholders: Final Thoughts
This is not Bank of America’s fault in any way, shape or form. Even thought that is true, I will say that I am glad that they are doing the right thing by their cardmembers. I am sure it will cost them a ton, not to mention the money they lost buying Spirit Airlines miles that are now worthless. This is still the right thing for them to do, even with the mounting financial burden they are absorbing. As I said above, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was legally required.
If you are a Spirit Airlines cardholder then you just need to hold out for a little bit longer to get that annual fee refund. Then you will be product changed to another no fee Bank of America card shortly after.
