I’ve avoided the budget airlines up until now, because people seem to have a lot of complaints about them – and it felt like when I added on the “additional charges”, the cost would be pretty close to a full-service carrier with more amenities.  With the advent of Basic Economy (BE) however, most of the other carriers are now modeling Spirit’s pricing for these lower tier tickets.  I thought this would mean extremely low prices for BE tickets, but I’ve found that most of the other carriers have not added a new lower priced tier, the prices I’m seeing for BE are just below what I used to pay for Economy, and regular Economy tickets are now higher than they used to be.

We needed to get from South Florida to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and for the time frame we were looking at United was $2,000 a person (ummmm…. What?!?!), so our only choices were really Spirit or Jet Blue.  I love Jet Blue, but the times of their flights didn’t work as well with our itinerary, so we decided to take a look at Spirit.  The Spirit flight was a $296.68 base fare, while Jet Blue had a $351 base fare. 

The idea behind the budget carriers is that you pay only for what you need.   If you don’t need to bring a checked bag, pick a certain seat, or won’t eat the meal the airline was going to serve you – why should you have to pay for it?  Your base fare on Spirit includes just a seat on the plane and one personal item (18” x 14” x 8” something the size of a laptop bag or a purse).  Everything else is an add-on.   You need to make sure and add up the total cost of your ticket, before comparing it to the price of other airlines. 

The majority of complaints I have seen about Spirit come from people who see the price, and don’t read the fine print.  They’re then hit with last minute baggage or seating charges which can be quite expensive, making their “cheap” ticket not so cheap. But if you know what you need, and how much it’s going to cost – you may find that Spirit might be a better deal than the other carriers.  So, what do you have to pay for, and which ticket was actually better?

Baggage:

Baggage is the number 1 add-on with Spirit.  I don’t know many people that can fly to another part of the country with just a purse (though I have seen some crazy souls try it lol!)  That said, you’ll either pay for a checked bag or a carry-on, and the cost is each way, so on a round trip ticket you’ll pay two baggage fees.  Oddly enough, a checked bag will cost you less than a carryon bag, so even if you only have enough stuff to fill a carryon – you might want to consider buying a checked bag instead.  The cost of adding a bag varies by route, and the time you make your purchase.  Let’s take a look at the following example of a round trip from Fort Lauderdale to San Juan. 

If you purchase a checked bag when you book the ticket, it is $35.00 and $40.00 for a carryon each way.  If you book the ticket, and decide to later add a bag, it’s $45.00 for a checked bag and $50.00 for a carryon.  If you wait until you get to the airport, it’s $50.00 for a checked back and $55.00 for a carryon and if you do it at the gate (for all those folks that think they’ll be able to sneak their carryon on for free) it’s a whopping $65.00 for a checked bag OR carryon.  The prices for $9 fare club members are even less (See $9 fare club info below).  The takeaway here is know what bags you want to bring when you’re purchasing your ticket, or you’ll pay more.  Spirit is very open about the costs and even give you this warning if you click no bags:

For this trip we needed a checked bag, a carryon wouldn’t do.  That raised the cost of the Spirit ticket to $368.68.  Jet Blue allows for one free carry-on and a personal bag with the base fare, while Spirit allows only a personal bag – however we needed the checked bag which raised our Jet Blue cost to $444.  Had we only needed the carry-on it would have been $368.68 Spirit/$351.00 Jet Blue and we would have gone with Jet Blue. 

Seat Selection:

The Spirit Website says you’ll pay the following for Seat Selection:

Spirit Assigned Seating at Check In: Free

Customer-Requested Seat Assignments / Regular Seats                      $1 to $50

Big Front Seats (in advance)                                                                        $12 to $150

Big Front Seats (onboard upgrades—depending on flight length)         $25 to $175

For the flight above the seats cost between $15 and $22 each way (depending on whether you want a window, aisle, middle or exit row seat), with the Big Front Seats being $36 each way (read about those below).  If you want to be assured that you sit next to the person you’re traveling with (even it’s a minor) you should purchase the seat selection.  If it doesn’t matter, it’s a way to save some more money.  My girlfriend and I did not choose seats, and we did online check in the minute it opened for both the outbound and return flight and were assigned seats next to each other.  Again, not guaranteed but if you’re willing to take the risk to save some money then go for it!

As a recap for this flight we did not need to choose seat assignments, so it was still Spirit $368.68/Jet Blue $444.  Had we wanted seat assignments it would have been $428.68 Spirit/$444.00 Jet Blue and we might have gone with Jet Blue. 

Snacks:  Spirit does not serve the standard free drinks or peanuts to travelers on their flights – but this one is a no brainer for me.  I hate most airplane food anyway and tend to buy something on my way to the airport to bring on the plane.  I’m definitely not going to pay extra for it. In the case of Spirit, it’s just snack foods anyway not meals.  But if that’s something you’re interested in – here are their prices as of April 2019. 

Boarding Passes:

Spirit will charge you $10 if you go to the check-in desk or the gate and request one, so save yourself the $10 and either print out your boarding pass at home, at the kiosk in the airport, or use the Spirit App.  This is what we did, so it did not change the price difference between the two airlines. 

Shortcut Boarding:

Shortcut boarding for our flight cost $5.99 each way allowing you to get on the plane earlier, but since folks have to pay for their carryon’s there is not as much of a rush to get on as there used to be.  We did not need this for our flight.

Thrills Bundle:

They do offer a Thrills bundle which for this flight was $79.49 each way.  This includes one checked bag, one carry on bag, shortcut through security, selecting a seat, one flight modification up to 24 hours prior to boarding and early boarding.  Unless you were planning on purchasing every single one of these things separately, or think you need to change your flight – it’s not really worth it.

 $9 Fare Club

Spirit also has what they call a $9 fare club.  The price of the club is $59.95 for the first year, and $69.95 each year after.  They also have a $19.95 60-day trial membership.  You don’t get fares for $9, but you do get discounts on both flights and baggage.  This discount applies to up to 8 other passengers when booked on the same reservation.  The discounts on flights are not on every flight, and according to Spirit they average about $11 each way.  Members receive a $9 discount on baggage each way (when buying online), which is savings of $18 a ticket. 

That being said, does joining the club make sense?  The answer is ….. it depends.  Based on their average you would have to take 3 discounted flights throughout the year to make up for the $59.95 annual fee, and 4 the following year.  So, if you are an infrequent traveler with Spirit, this is probably not the best option for you.   The second thing to look at is baggage.  If you’re a family of 5, and each person is going to take a checked bag – you’d save $90 on bags so even after the $60 fee you would save $30 and also possibly get a discount on your flight.  That might be an instance in which you want to join the club.  One thing to know is that with the trial membership, you cannot use the benefits on your first booking and must wait until your second (so you can’t purchase the trial membership, book your flight for your family of five, and then quit). 

We don’t plan to use Spirit often enough to justify the cost for our family.

The cost comparison:  We spent $398.68 per person on our Spirit flight and would have spent $444 a person with JetBlue for a savings of $90.64.  Had we purchased the tickets at the airport (see purchasing tip below) we would have saved an additional $20 per person bringing our savings to $130.64 by using Spirit over JetBlue.  If we were members of the $9 fare club we would have saved even more.  What did we lose?  With JetBlue we would have had a free beverage, peanuts, reclining seats, in-flight entertainment as well as (depending on the plane) a charging port.  We felt we could live without these things in order to spend that extra money on something fun during our vacation.   The bottom line is as long as it is a flight under three hours, I would fly Spirit to save money. 

Other things to know when flying Spirit:

• Many people don’t know that when you buy your tickets directly at the airport, you can save $19.99 each way. Flights booked online include a Passenger Usage Charge of $19.99 each way or $39.98 round trip, which is NOT charged when purchasing at the counter.  So, for a family of five like mine, I would save $199.99 on the cost of tickets.  You simply go to the Customer Service Counter and request to buy them there.  As with anything though, there’s a catch …. You cannot prepay for bags at the time of purchase and therefore the cost of your bags jumps up $10 each way when you go back in and order them online, bringing your savings down to $19.98 a person.  I live near my local airport, so I can have my girlfriend drop me off, and I can walk in and buy them – if you live an hour or so from the airport and need to pay for parking, you’ll need to figure that cost into the equation as well.  For us however, $19.98 x 5 people is still $99.95 savings and well worth it.  We’d save even more if we made the kids combine bags, but then how could my daughter bring 8 pairs of shoes on one trip (insert eyeroll here)!
• While you’re at the desk in the airport ask about their Penny fares.  Spirit has a number of fares that are available for a penny plus any taxes.  Just give them your dates and they can tell you what penny fares are available.  These can only be purchased at the desk, and they might only sell them at certain times in busier airports so call ahead and see when you can come in.  
• Spirit actually ranked first over all carriers in on-time flights in 2019, and second in 2017.
• Spirit does not have reciprocal agreements with other carriers and typically have a smaller flight schedule. So, in the event a Spirit flight is cancelled, you will either receive a refund, or have to wait for the next Spirit flight with open seating to fly from your destination which could be the following day.  If you absolutely have to be somewhere at a certain time and are using Spirit, I would consider leaving a day or two early to make sure there are no issues. 
• Spirit does not have an in-flight entertainment system or charging ports so make sure you bring your own entertainment.
• Spirit seats do not recline, which was fine for our two-and-a-half hour flight, but for anything longer or a red-eye flight I would choose another carrier.
• Spirit’s seat widths are an average 17.75, (though some are lower) which is actually better than most other carriers … their legroom however is another story with an industry low 28 inch pitch (another reason I wouldn’t do a flight longer than 3 hours). They do have something they call “Big Comfy Seats” which have a 18.5-inch seats width and a 36-inch pitch (an extra 6 inches of legroom comparable to many domestic first class seats).  This is similar to premium economy on other carriers, but a little bigger.  The cost for our flight would have been $36 each way. 
• On both flights flight attendants asked if anyone wanted to switch into the exit rows, you had to be an adult and be able to assist in the case of emergency. We took them on the flight out, and there is no row of seats where the exit is located so we had unlimited leg room.  Keep that in mind if they’re looking for volunteers.