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Review of: Spirit Airlines

1/5 (minimum 1)

by smonroe on 21 Jun 2008

I had the very unfortunate experience of having booked a ticket from Atlanta to NY via Spirit Airlines. On the way to NY, I had no problem at all. However, my flight back departed at 6:30am, four days before, I had decided to fly back a little later that day or the next morning. First, I tried to reschedule the flight via their website, but no online options. So next I called the 1-800 number. I sat for a couple of hours listening to elevator music. I tried the number each day for three days, nothing but hours of elevator music. As I expected, I was not able to get to the airport on time. I arrived a few hours later.

There was a young woman and her baby in a scroller who had been standing to the side of the check-in line, waiting. She then started approaching people. When she got to me, she asked where I was going, and if I could check two of her bags so that she could board the plane and get her baby home. Price per back, $20 (no free bag at all). The airline was allowing two lousy bags on a plane that wasn't nearly full to keep the woman (who had paid full price for her ticket) from departing.

The woman directly before me told me how the airline had canceled her flight without any attempt at all to contact her. She had bought seven tickets.

When I got to the counter, I explained how it was impossible for me to make that morning's flight, and how I tried to reschedule for three days straight. The supervisor then told me that I should have commuted (out from Manhattan) to the desk to do the reschedule, as if the only reason I came all the way to NY to do was deal with airlines. I asked "but don't you have any seats on this flight?", he replied "yes, but you'll have to pay for it". Then he told me that since I missed my flight, my ticket and booking information was "purged from the system", and (get this) that I would have to buy a new ticket... FOR THE NEXT MORNING. Buy a new ticket with you, hmmm, so tempting.

I was blessed and fortunate enough that a friend I had stayed with helped me get booked for another flight, with another airline of course, that departed a couple of hours laters.

Now compare this to the airline I switched to. I had a connection flight that I arrived to late, so kindly booked me on the next flight since it had extra seats. Then we arrived at the connection city late, and they ended up overbooking, and I lost my seat. So they offered me a free round-trip ticket to anywhere in the U.S., plus free hotel for the night/dinner, and to book me on the first flight the next morning.

I'd like to warn you, to be skeptical of these price-saver airlines, yes they save you money, but is the cost saving worth the customer service. Quality of customer care, when you're traveling, don't risk flying with an airline that is willing to leave good paying customers stranded.

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