We have taken 3 NK trips since April. So far so good. I saw a note on Airfarewatchdog that the Passenger Usage Fee can be waived if purchased ticket at airport. I saw another good rate for ORD-BOS yesterday and since we have a party of 5 so I think it will be worthwhile to drive to the airport to purchase ticket with PUF waived.

After priced out the tickets and make sure there are seats avail for our trip, I went to ORD airport Spirit counter and waited in line for almost an hour at ticket counter trying to buy 5 tickets for a trip to BOS. When finally it's my turn, I walk to the available counter agent and she is still texting while talking to me. I asked the ticket agent if the passenger usage fee can be waived by purchasing at the counter. She said she has never seen that and all fees has to be paid for ticket purchased at the airport counter. I was going to push it and request her to check with he manager but there are just too many people still at line after me to check in. On top of this, the ticketing agent was busy with her texting... I asked her to help with the purchase anyway and she came up with ticket around $100 per person. I showed her the screen print I just printed a hour ago showing the $36/pp fare rate(I have the $9 fare membership). She said it is $100/pp on her computer. At this point I don't think she knows how to handle this kind of ticket purchase and I certainly don't want to pay $100/pp if the website is showing $36. I returned home quickly and purchased ticket online while this price is still available.

I wonder if anyone had luck to purchase ticket with this "passenger usage fee" waived. I think even if this is possible, Spirit might add ticketing fee or whatever fee they can come up with. At the end, I returned home and booked online and paid $90 PUF for this trip.

So I wasted 2 hours and 2 hours airport parking fee and learned my lesson. This is really a hidden charge to deceive people with the $9 fare.