Indeed, sometimes it's easy to forget they have a FF program, and a mileage-based one at that. Baldanza finally got his 50% credit for lowest fares (dunno where this sale's fare category maps, but would guess 50%). There's also an expiration policy that's way too aggressive, as well as a ridiculous booking fee unless you're planning 180+ days out (in which case your risk of significant schedule changes goes up). Partnerships also are currently thin (Hertz being most significant). On the plus side, sometimes they throw a bone like 5,000 miles for Haiti donations or after the strike, and the distance-based formula for awards makes some places reasonable, especially if you bought a discounted ticket to FLL and did your award on a second ticket to/from there.

I've flown around 20 flights and just now can get a freebie; while u can argue that it's not fair to expect too much in bennies on top of $20-90 FLL RTs from ATL, I'd say the flip side is that FF programs at their best can incentivize travel that would not have otherwise been taken, and for "regular members" (or even $9FC ones), Spirit doesn't quite rise to that.

They're more generous with credit-card holders, waiving the mileage expiration and allowing bookings as low as 5K miles at certain limited times of the year (which is way over-marketed/oversold). BUT, their partner bank has been pretty conservative of late with approving cards, and I'd venture to say a high percentage of their passengers would not be approved if they applied, certainly not in the post-2008 environment. Probably also a higher reject rate than legacy-airline passengers, though actual rates are likely similar because many who'd be rejected probably just don't apply. If I were looking for a flaw in the business plan to press upper management on that would be a good candidate, as they seem stuck in the 2006 world there.

The value of the $9 Fare Club also seems to be really slipping badly of late. That's "free" if you take the credit card (which has an annual fee) AND make a purchase a month (a significant added condition, really), or $39/year otherwise. It started out as a pretty good "private sale" access, the deal being that you could get at least one really good fare deal every 6 weeks. A $9 fare each way, for example, totaled $39.80 after taxes and junk fees, and you could take a carry-on.

Today the math has changed quite a bit. Recent sales have left out quite a few city pairs for weeks running from the rock-bottom deals. If you did snag $9 on the fare it'd be $54+ a-i (thanks to invention of the $16 airline-imposed "passenger usage fee"), and you'd be subject to their controversial baggage policy (which effectively cuts your free carry-on size roughly in half if you're still hardy enough to do that).

Most infuriating to $9FC members, though, is having things unbundled to the point where a $50-off fare for customers off the street is about the same as the (non-discountable) $9FC fare anyway. The whole arrangement appears to be morphing into some subscription discount plan for baggage fees, some of which didn't exist a few years ago. Not exactly the stuff of "sign me up!" excitement.