Northwest WorldPerks (Discontinued Program) - Finally competition on DTW-DCA coutesy of Spirit

Spirit Airlines has announced an intro fare of $59 o/w on flights starting 6/17

Book by 5/21 - No Sat. stay

NW is currently $550 r/t on this route w/tax. Spirit is $138.20

I'm sorry, but I am fed up with NW and their pricing on their "safe" routes. I am tired of paying between $350 and $450 r/t if I decide to get away for the weekend to visit my family in DTW and I didn't have 14 days to plan (yes, I am aware of cyber fares). I'm also annoyed that NW sells that capacity to Site59.com for such a low rate that they can turn around and sell me the flight and a car for at least a $100 savings over NWA.com (I don't need a car and I'd rather get the 1k WP miles).

There is a reason airlines like Southwest, JetBlue and Spirit are all expanding and adding routes. They don't play games with their customers. I've flown Spirit a few times, and each time they were friendly, on time and seemed to enjoy their job. In March Spirit announced that they were completely replacing their fleet of MD80s with 35 Airbus A320s and put an option on an additional 60 more. What is NW doing wrong and why the millions in bonuses to top brass that can't keep the airline profitable and their customers happy?

For those looking for WP bonuses, look for a NW match and we can hope a good bonus mile promotion similar to the WAS United RTW promotion. They had better, or Spirit (which grew up in DTW) will start really cutting into NW there. I'll be flying Spirit and earning my WP miles other ways. 15 years of this is enough.

Link on the Spirit fare:
http://www.spiritair.com/welcome.aspx?pg=pressrelease&PressID=2&StartRow=1

Spirit Airlines has announced an intro fare of $59 o/w on flights starting 6/17

Book by 5/21 - No Sat. stay

NW is currently $550 r/t on this route w/tax. Spirit is $138.20

I'm sorry, but I am fed up with NW and their pricing on their "safe" routes. I am tired of paying between $350 and $450 r/t if I decide to get away for the weekend to visit my family in DTW and I didn't have 14 days to plan (yes, I am aware of cyber fares). I'm also annoyed that NW sells that capacity to Site59.com for such a low rate that they can turn around and sell me the flight and a car for at least a $100 savings over NWA.com (I don't need a car and I'd rather get the 1k WP miles).

There is a reason airlines like Southwest, JetBlue and Spirit are all expanding and adding routes. They don't play games with their customers. I've flown Spirit a few times, and each time they were friendly, on time and seemed to enjoy their job. In March Spirit announced that they were completely replacing their fleet of MD80s with 35 Airbus A320s and put an option on an additional 60 more. What is NW doing wrong and why the millions in bonuses to top brass that can't keep the airline profitable and their customers happy?

For those looking for WP bonuses, look for a NW match and we can hope a good bonus mile promotion similar to the WAS United RTW promotion. They had better, or Spirit (which grew up in DTW) will start really cutting into NW there. I'll be flying Spirit and earning my WP miles other ways. 15 years of this is enough.

Link on the Spirit fare:
http://www.spiritair.com/welcome.aspx?pg=pressrelease&PressID=2&StartRow=1

Nice post. If history is any indication, NW should match these fares right away. When Frontier announced LAX-MSP in December, NW retaliated with LAX-DEN about FOUR HOURS LATER!!!

NW hasn't matched yet. Maybe they've resigned themselves to the fact that Spirit is in Detroit and isn't likely to leave anytime soon (this isn't Spirit's first competing route with NW). Spirit also has FLL flights from DCA, so they won't likely leave there soon either. And NW has 9 well-timed flights per day each way with lots of business/government types, while Spirit has 1 flight each way at not-so-convenient times (especially DCA-DTW).

But hopefully it'll at least bring down DTW-DCA fares, since flexible leisure travelers would all take the $138 all-in Spirit fare before a $279 all-in NW fare (30-day advance purchase with Saturday night stay), and NW likely doesn't want to lose all its leisure customers on any route...

Not exactly a match but

DTW-DCA is showing 233.19 for 5/28-31/04 and 222.25 for 5/21-24/04 on NWA

Still not too sure about Spirit Airlines but I like their change fee’s. I just had to do a change on a base fare ticket that cost $194.00 at a cost of $100.00. Spirit has a $25.00 change fee. I would love to see NW match that approach.
:)

Still not too sure about Spirit Airlines but I like their change fee’s. I just had to do a change on a base fare ticket that cost $194.00 at a cost of $100.00. Spirit has a $25.00 change fee. I would love to see NW match that approach.
:)
NW has already implemented the $25 change fee on fares published to compete with Spirit flights. In most cases, NW offers these fares on flights only scheduled around the time the Spirit flight operates (ie- LAS red-eye DTW flights to compete with Spirits flight after midnight). On other flights where NW has the only nonstop service for a few hours, you can expect the $100 fee.

NW has already implemented the $25 change fee on fares published to compete with Spirit flights. In most cases, NW offers these fares on flights only scheduled around the time the Spirit flight operates (ie- LAS red-eye DTW flights to compete with Spirits flight after midnight). On other flights where NW has the only nonstop service for a few hours, you can expect the $100 fee.

Hey that's great, too bad it did not work for me this morning on a IND-MSP-LAX ticket.