Originally Posted by
RustyC
Thanks for sharing the story. While some of us are in better shape than others for buying at airport counters, I've noticed that even outside this sale they've had to chronically discount certain short routes, such as ones like ATL-MCO or ATL-CLE where they go head-to-head with F9 and the legacies, as well as occasionally ATL-ORD/DFW where they're also being resisted. Something like $34.10 standard each way on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday isn't unusual even outside a sale, so buying those at the airport if convenient to lower the total to $16-ish might be doable at a more leisurely pace without having to drop everything and go down there right away.
There were a few others that were buying from the Spirit counter. For me, I wanted to head down to the Shore anyways and just try it once, but probably won't buy from counter at PHL or ACY regularly, as it was time consuming. At PHL, one can park at the Four Points airport hotel for 2 hours for free and maybe something similar at ATL exists. But I dislike waiting for the courtesy hotel shuttle on the return. I've been stuck waiting a long time, despite calling the hotel and indicating I'm waiting for a pickup, especially when arriving before 3pm. It's often too much hassle.
But, I think the notion that Spirit customers are flying once a year and are hoodwinked into fees they find out later might be inaccurate. Atleast from ACY, there seems to be a lot of repeat customers and those that know how about the fees fully to escape some of them.
Re: ATL-MCO, Frontier actually ended the route. Then Spirit added it, and Frontier returned to it. I don't know how much demand the two can stimulate when the drive isn't too bad for most families, and with Southwest and Delta fare matching to some extent. MegaBus also provides bus coverage.
But it is possible to stay in some hotels by the parks and not need a rental car. One would have just take a taxi from MCO, but many hotels have park shuttles that can be used during the stay.