iahphx

As dansdeals notes, it's worth getting the miles for the free magazine and WSJ subscriptions. The only way to get free travel from this promo is to also get a Spirit credit card and qualify for reduced award levels (you could also easily do some manufactured spending). Honestly, I'm afraid to do that because it would mean I'd "have" to fly Spirit more.

Centurion

I actually love this marketing concept. Congrats to Spirit.

joshwex90

RyanAir? I see no difference between Ryan and Spirit other than route network. Lower fares, bare bones with EVERYTHING for an additional cost. And crappy conditions and service at the bare bones fare.

Contrast with easyJet

RustyC

Well, I hate to point this out, but one thing Spirit has been bad about has been properly crediting miles from sources other than flights to accounts. I'm still waiting on a small number of car rental miles, and with paper vouchers they have a way of claiming you can only have one credited even if they are from different offers. Though that was maybe 3 years ago.

Thanks to OP for posting, and I can benefit from this. I actually did my negative tweet on Delta, even though there's plenty with Spirit you could go after. Delta's FF-program changes for 2015 mean that miles cease to be an important factor for many trips, which lets Spirit and others into the game. Whereas for years the legacies had the upper hand if fares were comparable because of the FF programs.

Am sure they're betting the average Joe isn't as versed as FTers in being able to use miles for magazines. Methinks the real goal of the promo is to get people to sign up FF accounts, as I'm sure they have a lot of former customers who didn't sign up or didn't pay attention to accounts or may have had miles expired from them. IMO they need to review their expiration policy if they want to get serious about the FF program incentivizing additional business. It's also a cruel irony to have important benefits linked to a credit card when a likely high percentage of customers can't qualify for that card.

sonofzeus

I said it first and more succinctly up-thread,

sonofzeus

and many others.

but not Ryanair.

idayvuelta

Again I'm only one datapoint, but Ryanair has night and day different network and dirt cheap fares. Spirit has a relatively small network and as a result their flight times tend to be infrequent or inconvenient. As I mentioned earlier, my experience has consistently been that their fares on a good day are just a notch below a real airline (and more if you add in the ancillary fees and the value of miles). I lived in Detroit for three years, even joined the $9 fare club and only once was I able to find a flight on Spirit that saved any appreciable amount of money (about $100 on a last-minute ticket). I occasionally check them ex-NYC for tickets back to Detroit, west or Central/South America and the Caribbean. They are virtually always priced similarly at best and sometimes even more expensive.

The same simply cannot be said for Ryanair (and we're ignoring other LLCs in other parts of the world, including high-cost Australia for goodness sake, that are miles better than Spirit). Ryanair and Spirit are both crappy, crappy airlines. But in my experience Ryanair at least represented an honest savings. If Spirit could actually deliver on the same, I would consider flying it.

idayvuelta

Duplicate post.

iahphx

I think you are increasingly correct. I've actually seen WN undercut Spirit's fares on competitive routes this summer. Honestly, you want to save about half on Spirit before you consider them -- and there are fewer such opportunities these days. The idea that anyone would fly them to save, say, 20 bucks, is nuts.

Martin100

I have the spirit card and occasionally I see days with 7500 mile award to latin and South America. For example I have already flown round trip LGA/colombia for a total of 15000 miles. The scheduling was hard and I had to leave from bogota and fly into medellin. But It was free.

I see some ates in November, 7500 mile awards to Honduras and these free miles will cover one way to San Pedro sula, the murder capital of the world.

Spirit is not comfortable, but if you have lots of flexibility and patience and pack light, they can be useful.

RustyC

Honduras and Haiti are not on the wish list, but so far I've redeemed from ATL to CUN (5K), CTG (10K), STT (10K), SJO (10K x 2), DEN (5K x 2), SJD (10K), LIM (1/2 RT, 12.5K) and FLL (5K x 4). They really overhype the off-peaks relative to availability, and it's only off-peak about a third of the year and you have to have the credit card. And you still have to pay the taxes and all the different fees they have (the LIM was the only one of those where I popped for a bag...the rest were rucksacks) and get that "cozy" seating experience.

It also might depend on where you are and whether you can get award seats through FLL to destinations served out of there. If your city doesn't have FLL flights or there aren't any award seats on those there are, then you're cut off from some of the more interesting spots (though I got to SJD via DFW). They started out with a route map that looked like a FLL hub carrier to connect a few U.S. cities to the Caribbean and Central America, but lately are more focused on adding routes within the U.S., often going head to head against legacies.

TheXMan

My points just posted today. Woot! I'll be using these miles to get 5 people to orlando next year for 25k miles + $25 fee + Baggage + seat selection.

beachbrew

Mine did as well, I think It took 7 or 8 days to post. Time for a churn!

Kay_nyc

sweet! mine did too. I use these for quick days trips to Florida in the winter. I'd feel bad throwing away any other miles on that kind of extravagance.

PatoLoco

For anyone going the magazine redemption route... So our 8000 miles posted Thursday to our accounts and we have already redeemed them for miles! If any of your readers need a step by step guide on how to redeem once the miles post, we wrote a blog post about it, as it was somewhat deceiving at first to a couple of our readers. The post is here: http://twototravelandtango.com/trave...ines/#more-376

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