Frontier Airlines EarlyReturns - $39 fare sale, plus 12% off any fare

Two significant promos:

(1) $39 fares in 13 nonstop markets for travel through 3/7/12. Buy by Jan 12:

DEN to/from Albuquerque, Austin, Hayden/Steamboat, Little Rock, Houston
MKE to/from New York, Grand Rapids, Flint and Washtington
MCI to/from Austin, Denver, Milwaukee, Houston

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Happy-New-Year-From-Frontier-bw-2151711301.html?x=0

(2) 12% off any fare (including sale fares) for tickets purchased by noon pacific time on Wednesday 1/3. Use promo code HAPPY12.

Happy ’12! We’re kicking off 2012 with our New Year’s Sale… and we’re making it 12% happier too. From now thru Noon PT Wed. 1/3, get 12% off any U.S. domestic base fare… even sale fares! Just use Promo Code “HAPPY12” when booking. Find out the details and book TODAY at FrontierAirlines.com.


The promos do, indeed, overlap. So if you book any of these $39 markets with the 12% off, after fees and taxes the cost is usually a bit under $90 round trip.

Impressive. Wonder if BB's commitment to being a ULCC has allowed them to decrease the loss they're taking on these flights...I'll be booking a few legs DEN-AUS in all likelihood and this beats what I paid for the Groupon deal...

12% off any fare (including sale fares) for tickets purchased by noon pacific time on Wednesday 1/3. Use promo code HAPPY12.

Happy ’12! We’re kicking off 2012 with our New Year’s Sale… and we’re making it 12% happier too. From now thru Noon PT Wed. 1/3, get 12% off any U.S. domestic base fare… even sale fares! Just use Promo Code “HAPPY12” when booking. Find out the details and book TODAY at FrontierAirlines.com.


Frontier issued a correction:

UPDATED sale post. Our 12% offer is valid until 12 pm ET on Tuesday, 1/3/12. We apologize for the previous post with the incorrect day of week listed. The expiration date on the previous post is correct. http://www.frontierairlines.com/happy12-promo

They corrected the day of week - Tuesday, not Wednesday, Jan 3; however, the correction says discount valid for purchase by "12 pm ET," while the original terms state "Noon PT."

Oops x 2.

Those sorts of errors just make Frontier look amateurish and tick people off. When the error was realized, the right decision would have been to honor the original commitment.

The number of people who will use this 12% off discount code is probably not huge in either case, and the additional 27 hours the code would be valid would probably not make much revenue difference for them. It's not like they accidentally promoted 92% off instead of 12% off, or a sale fare of $1.29 instead of $129. The monetary difference is probably peanuts, but the goodwill lost is bigger -- both in the (likely small) number of people who are mad that the code stops working sooner, but also that they look foolish.

Mistakes certainly do happen, but the key is to figure out the best way to recover from them. In my opinion this was a no-brainer to let go. Then again...if they had made such a call, we'd never have known of the error. So while I think this was the wrong call, there may have been plenty of other times where the right call in mistake-recovery was made that we just didn't know about. It's easy to be critical, of course.

As for the economics of these $39 fares:

--They are a sign of inventory they don't see a way to fill with higher fares
--They certainly don't cover fully-allocated costs
--They might well cover the marginal extra cost of the added passenger (primarily fuel), and new traffic they generate is a net positive.
--They will cannibalize some people who would travel at a higher fare, and every instance of this is a net negative.

These fares are not good on Sunday, and there are already some other days where they are unavailable, so I don't know how much inventory is in this bucket.

Another way to look at this is that it is not much different than junky connecting traffic. Last year, Frontier may have sold a $78 MSP-DCA fare to help fill seats. That's certainly a low fare, but not the type of jaw-dropping fare that raises eyebrows. Yet...MSP-DCA took two legs...MSP-MKE and MKE-DCA, and essentially that woudl mean selling a $39 MSP-MKE fare and a $39 MKE-DCA fare. This year they don't fly MSP-MKE, and the $39 MKE-DCA fare is here instead.

Is it better (or worse) to sell a $39 MKE-DCA rather than a $78 MSP-MKE-DCA? It can be argued either way.

They have nothing strategically to gain from offering a low $78 MSP-DCA fare becaue they will attract the bottom-feeders who will fly whomever saves them a cent and will forget who they flew last time. But there isn't much higher-fare MSP-DCA traffic flying Frontier in the dead of winter that they will cannibalize, either. No gain, no loss.

In MKE they can create more memorable buzz because they are well known here and have a significant traffic base, and by being a nonstop carrier in MKE-DCA they have a more prominent position than just an also-ran connecting airline (which Frontier is in MSP-DCA). But on the flip side, they run the risk of selling $39 fares to people who would have paid more, and they run the risk of conditioning MKE-DCA passengers to expect fares this low.

In either case, I don't bring this up to suggest "hey, $39 fares are moneymakers!" but more to illustrate how weak junky connecting yield can be, and how these $39 nonstop fares are not that much different.

$177.48, all in, for two round trips MKE-DCA. That includes the 12% discount.

(See you in March, Cheryl & Amir!)

Those sorts of errors just make Frontier look amateurish and tick people off.+1 ^
Especially when the clarifying post raises additional questions, i.e. time zone.

Mistakes certainly do happen, but the key is to figure out the best way to recover from them.

Frontier certainly does make a lot of them. Management's lack of experience, maybe?

Two significant promos:

(1) $39 fares in 13 nonstop markets for travel through 3/7/12. Buy by Jan 12:

DEN to/from Albuquerque, Austin, Hayden/Steamboat, Little Rock, Houston
MKE to/from New York, Grand Rapids, Flint and Washtington
MCI to/from Austin, Denver, Milwaukee, Houston



AirTran appears to be matching the $39 fare for competitive routes, as is SWA. Of course, the extra 12% discount is not matched.

Bummer. Was shopping last night for fares and jumped online just now to book, but was not able to use HAPPY12. I found the reason on FT, thanks guys.
Come on F9, figure it out!

Bummer. Was shopping last night for fares and jumped online just now to book, but was not able to use HAPPY12. I found the reason on FT, thanks guys.
Come on F9, figure it out!

The email that went out and the promo notice right on the website say offer good till 12 noon PT, which is about two hours from now. I would call reservations and tell them.

One thing on the web site I do like with the promo code is that it showed the original fare crossed out and the new discounted fare next to it. It's good to show the savings in such a clear way.

Although the are shortcomings with their website, I do like how it displays that type of discount.

Posted on FB:

We are working on a fix for the promo code. We apologize for the inconvenience. A fix should be in place within the next 30 minutes. You may also contact our reservations department at 800-432-1359
37 minutes ago

The 12% discount will be valid through 12:00 PM PT today.
36 minutes ago

Tyler Sayre Your phone systems are down and I can't apply the code online?
25 minutes ago

Frontier Airlines ‎@Tyler, I am sorry for the phone issue. Our lines are operational again. We are still working on a fix for the web. I apologize for any inconvenience.
10 minutes ago

What a mess!

Promotion now extended thru this afternoon, ET. :)


We have extended our “HAPPY12” discount promotion to 5 PM ET today (1/3/12) due to difficulties with our site. The site is once again functional. Enter Promo Code “HAPPY12” when booking to get the 12% off deal. We do apologize for the inconvenience. http://www.frontierairlines.com/plan-book/flight-finder

Posted on FB:
What a mess!

This is so typical of Frontier. It looks like a bunch of ten year olds are running their IT department.