Do you know what happens when you go on Youtube and type in Spirit Airlines? You get inundated with copious reviews of how terrible booking with Spirit is (there are a few good ones sprinkled in there). I have a cruise coming up in November that I just recently booked because the price was too good to pass up. I started looking at airfare and decided to check out Spirit since it is a short cruise and I don’t need to pack much. This post will solely be about my booking process and I will do a separate review of the flight.
It was a late night of me sitting in my office being a pseudo travel agent with multiple tabs open with every airline known to man open (working in hotels makes me weary of third party sites like Expedia). I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that Spirit had my desired destination for $101 total roundtrip. I immediately started watching some review videos and I couldn’t believe that garbage that people complain about. I consider myself an efficient traveler and if I can score a cheap ticket that doesn’t include a drink and a bag of pretzels, I will do it.
As I was researching the airline, I came across an article about the passenger fee that was added when you book online (about $36 a roundtrip ticket per person). It said that you could avoid this fee if you bought your tickets at the airport. I was sold so I headed to the airport. Here are my tips for buying your tickets at the airport:
- Call ahead to see what times the Spirit staff will be at the airport. In Buffalo, they were only there certain days and times (see photo below).
- Be Patient. The days that they are there, their priority is to get the current flights passengers and their bags on board. I had to wait until the check in time had passed for the flight that was going out.
- Pay for bags ahead of time. It is cheaper to book any additional baggage needs at the time of booking. I didn’t end up needing this but I figured I’d mention it anyways.
- Pay attention and take notes. I went up and took a photo of their time notes for their flights. I also took a look at my surroundings noticing the self-check in area and baggage size canisters.
Some of the negative reviews that I have seen have complained about the fees be it for baggage or this passenger fee. Last I checked, especially in this case, this is a $75 ticket for a roundtrip, direct flight to Florida. Even if I didn’t drive, it would have been $101. There are no other airlines that have prices like that. If you opted to pay the $35 for a carry on so you have that and your person item that would have been $171 if you booked online. That is still a great deal!
Who knows, I could possibly change my attitude towards Spirit when I actually fly them in November. I think I can suck it up for 2.5 hours though. I’m flying roundtrip for $75. I’m pretty happy with that so far! Have any of you ever tried Spirit Airlines?
Let me know what you think in the comments!
