The Brand-New Free Spirit: More Points, Loyalty Tiers and Credit Cards for All
Joe Cortez October 21, 2020
After listening to their frequent flyers, Spirit Airlines is relaunching their loyalty program to offer even more overall rewards. The new Free Spirit frequent flyer program offers members more ways to earn points, awards with no blackout dates and new benefits for their credit cards.
Once known as America’s ultra-low-cost-carrier with the cheeky sales pitches, Spirit Airlines is making a big push to become the carrier known for low fares and more rewards with every purchase. After talking with their customers and doing their market research, the Florida-based carrier is rebuilding all of their loyalty programs from the ground up to offer more incentives for their best customers. Announced today, the new Free Spirit program is the latest step in the evolution of the yellow-plane airline, going into effect on Jan. 21, 2021.
More Rewards Options: If You Can Buy a Ticket in Cash, You Can Buy it With Points
The airline hinted at some of these changes in August 2020, when a regulatory filing revealed the carrier’s plans to improve the former $9 Fare Club and offer a new credit card to flyers with subprime credit. But today’s announcement is a total re-imagination of loyalty for the airline over four years in the making.
“Loyalty programs should work for travelers whether they fly once a year, or once a week. You should be rewarded either way,” Spirit president and CEO Ted Christie said in a statement. “We decided to start with a clean sheet of paper and re-imagine what Free Spirit could be.”
At its base, flyers will get six Free Spirit points for every $1 spent on airfare. If they decide to purchase add-on services to their tickets, like selecting a seat or a checked bag, those options will earn double points – 12 points for every $1 spent on ancillary services.
When it comes to redemptions, flyers will have two options: reward tickets, or Points + Cash rewards. Under the new program, reward tickets will start at 2,500 points, while Points + Cash bookings start with as few as 1,000 points. Airline executives tell FlyerTalk while rewards will be based on a dynamic award chart, any seat available for cash will be available with rewards points with no blackout dates.
In an unusual turn, the airline is not adding new fees to certain options. Under the new program, flyers who book at least 90 days in advance of their travel will not pay any redemption fees, while those redeeming rewards within 90 days will pay lower booking fees.
The airline will also allow flyers to pool points with up to eight friends and family members of their choosing, allowing the collective group to earn rewards faster.
A Spirit Airlines flight is greeted by ramp supervisors with an American Flag. In April 2020, the carrier organized a number of humanitarian flights to return over 1,300 U.S. nationals back to the country after the COVID-19 pandemic began. Image courtesy: Spirit Airlines
Free Spirit Silver and Gold: Loyalty Rewards for Frequent Flyers
In addition to reimagining how flyers earn and use Spirit points, the program is also adding two elite status levels: Free Spirit Silver and Free Spirit Gold. Instead of earning based on how much they fly, Free Spirit elites will earn their status based on how much they spend.
To earn Free Spirit Silver, flyers must earn 2,000 status qualifying points (SQPs) by spending $2,000 on Spirit Flights, or $20,000 on an eligible Free Spirit credit card in a calendar year. For Free Spirit Gold, flyers must earn 5,000 SQPs through spending $5,000 on flights, or $50,000 on eligible Free Spirit credit card in a calendar year. Flyers can also earn status through a combination of the two elements.
Flyer activity for the 2020 year will count towards status when the elite levels launch. Executives tell FlyerTalk they anticipate minting new elite members when the program takes flight in January 2021.
As with other elite statuses, flyers will gain new benefits for their loyalty. Silver members will earn eight points for every $1 spent on airfare, and 16 points for every $1 spent on “A La Smarte” options. Silver elites will also get free shortcut security at select airports, free same-day standby, free general seat selection 24 hours before departure, and exit row availability opening up three hours before departure.
Free Spirit Gold members will get all the benefits of Silver, with extra benefits. Gold elites will get a free carry-on bag, free checked bag, free Flight Flex to change a flight once with no fee prior to 24 hours before departure, and a free inflight beverage and snack. They will also be able to select their seat when they book, including exit rows.
New Benefits Coming to Free Spirit Credit Cards
The benefits aren’t limited to the loyalty program. The airline will also offer a brand new suite of benefits for their U.S. credit card issued by Bank of America, and their Latin America credit card with Promerica. Eligible new cards will also earn one SQP with every $10 in spending, no redemption fees for all reward flights, and an annual companion voucher good for up to $100 off a companion’s flight.
Although the airline could not offer the full details of the revamped cards, they note that current cardholders will start getting more information towards the end of the year. In addition, executives confirmed to FlyerTalk their new credit card with CreditShop will offer benefits competitive with both of the current credit cards.
The new Spirit Airlines cabin, featuring the Acro Aircraft Seating ergonomically-designed seats. The new cabin will offer two more inches of usable legroom on an ultralightweight foam seat. Image courtesy: Spirit Airlines
Goodbye $9 Fare Club, Hello Spirit Saver$ Club
Finally, Spirit will finally sunset the $9 Fare Club, which the executives admitted had outlived its name. In its place will be the Spirit Saver$ Club: A brand new offering that expands on the original club’s goals.
Like with the original club, members will get access to exclusive discounted fares not available to the general public. Members can book fares for themselves and up to eight additional people, giving an entire household savings with one membership.
In addition to saving on airfare, club members will also get discounts on the entire experience. Saver$ can get checked and carry-on bags for up to 50 percent less, discounts on selecting seats, and the “A La Smarte” options. To create even more savings, the airline will offer 18- and 24-month membership options.
Redesigning Free Spirit Part of the Airline’s Maturity
Through the new program, Spirit executives are confident that they can attract a new generation of leisure flyers who are balancing saving money with an enhanced customer experience. At the end of 2019, the airline announced a cabin redesign, offering ergonomically-designed seats which offer two more inches of useable legroom. And in the summer of 2020, Spirit announced a biometric bag drop system, which offers a touchless experience as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
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Living in Miami Beach, Spirits FLL home base is an hour away. With no service or real meals in Domestic First Class, by the three majors, there really is now difference with Big Front Seat. I did a DC-MEX RT, in United Business, on their small Airbus jet. It was five hours of a "flying Phoenician Slave Galley," misery at it's finest. Really, the Spirit five-hour BFS experience is better: I've flown the Lima-FLL route, the seating on United is no better! Did I mention, the meals on this 5 hour, international capitals flight, was pure dog food gross: you know that prison inmates eat better?
I'm exactly the kind of customer they're going after...I have Elite status on Frontier but still have a Spirit credit card from years ago. I used to fly Spirit a good bit but haven't flown them any in over 2 years. Frontier "won" with a program that takes the worst edges off for elites with various fee-avoiding perks that Spirit seems to have grudgingly adopted in part here. OTOH, Frontier is still distance-based while Spirit is trying to go with the legacies and be spend-based. That alone is likely disqualifying in my case. As Spirit itself used to realize, people fly them in hopes of NOT paying lots of money, and they've got probably the most price-conscious customer base in the industry. Also, offering a path to status with $20K of annual credit-card spend with this crowd? It's taken many years, but they finally seem aware that much of their customer base was getting rejected on credit cards. I'm sure they thought they went through a real deliberative process to come up with this, but it looks like a meatball-sundae cross between features of legacy programs and features of Frontier's, the latter of which was doing much better with engendering passenger loyalty.
I believe that Airline credit card programs are great! I have one for all the airlines I use. The cost is something, but one flight with two people (and their free luggage) more than pays the annual fee for the card. I am also glad to see that Spirit is using Bank of America as their processor. Barclays Bank processes several of the other airline cards and their Customer Service and After Hours access is awful and Call Center Management is unresponsive at best. Spirit seems to be making some smart moves lately.
I used to love Spirit for all my DTW/LGA flights before they got to be really cheap. I could fly in business class for about $25 more than Northwest in Coach and you got a better snack selection and very generous with the alcohol. Only thing you didn't get on the flight you would have gotten with NWA was a predeparture adult drink (which was hit/miss on NWA anyway but they always offered non-alcohol for a PDB and ALWAYS got one) and the seat were more comfortable. But then Spirit got to be cheap overnight and only thing you got up front was a more comfortable seat and I haven't flown them since and probably won't.
I fly Spirit quite often and lately they have done a better job than some of the majors. In regards to the new rewards program, unless they changed, I believe you had to travel every 3 months or the mileage disappeared. Their administrative cost added to using miles is sometime higher than the normal fare. Great to fly if you are in the front "big seat".