I'm moving to another part of the country from PHL. In the past when I was annoyed at US I would fly Midwest for a while. LOVED the old Midwest. Now that I'm going to be living in the mid west my most viable options are:

DL, F9 & US (out of habit and * codeshare) Since most of the travel will be on my dime I'm looking for the best overall VALUE and it looks like F9 might fit the bill. I hear good things about DL, however the few flights I've made on Delta I was unimpressed.

I'd like to hear the pros and cons of Frontier from loyal Flyer Talkers. I'm willing to trade TATL award travel in exchange for slightly lower fares. Looking forward to your responses

The wide seats of the old Midwest are of course long gone, and you probably hadn't seen them in PHL in a few years anyway. There are a lot of the same ground employees as you had at Midwest, and a fair (but not huge) number of legacy YX inflight people are with F9. So some continuity, but a different airline.

Frontier is generally pretty aggressive on price, which is helpful. They also have cheaper bag fees and lower change fees than most competitors, no seat assignment fees and no fees to call reservations. All those things are helpful when you're paying for things yourself.

Frontier's three-tierd Air Fares system give you unique access to various perks for a nominal upcharge. If you're paying for bags and/or a few other things like DIRECTV, it is sometimes cheaper to buy a Classic fare than buy the cheapest economy fare and pay for the added items a la carte.

The FF program gives you elite status at ten round trips or 15,000 miles in a calendar year, and the miles do not expire as long as you have activity at least every two years. With elite status you no longer pay bag fees, and get perks like bonus miles, free DIRECTV, advance exit row, free upgrades, free drinks, etc. Top-tier elite status is twenty round trips, which brings more perks and comes a lot easier than higher-tier status on DL or US.

Frontier has STRETCH seating on all aircraft larger than 50 seats (the E170's are in the procees of installation) which is conventional width but much roomier leg room. Especially on the E-jets the 2x2 STRETCH section is nearly as comfortable as conventional domesitc narrowbody F. It's not bad on the Airbus, but very nice on the E-jets. STRECH is a $25 upgrade fee for all travelers, free at check in for low-tier elite FF members, and free at booking at top-tier FF members.

If you're not based in MKE, you'll be connecting here fairly often. MKE is a much easier airport to navigate for connections than DL or US use.


So what are some downsides?

--75 destinations pales in comparison to what DL and US offer, so it's more limited in where you can earn miles and where you can redeem miles.

--No FF partners (which is something they said they are looking to change, but nothing yet) means no overseas FF travel.

--No conventional F, and while STRETCH is nice and much cheaper to upgrade to, it's not a separate cabin with wider seats.


Hope this helps!

Knope, your diatribe forgot to mention the what AirTran has to offer.

Forklift Joe is not getting a dime from me.

Thanks Knope, it was a most helpful post. Like you I like the MKE hub very much and the in flight amenities are superior to US coach offerings, especially with status.

Keep on building your online persona, RSVP. Nothing which I can say or do does a more effective job.


The original poster has narrowed down finalists to DL, US and F9, and came to the Frontier board to ask about positives and negatives. I supplied some of both. They only stated they were moving to "another part of the country" and it may not even be a city which AirTran serves. Not every last thing should be framed in the Midwest (now Frontier) versus AirTran paradigm.

For the record Air Truck does serve the city I'm relocating to. I'm not interested in enriching "Forklift Joe" or his airline. In fact they were immediately ruled out.

One thing that appeals to me is the complimentary club use day of travel in MKE as an ascent member. What I'm looking for is a good what I'll call "LCC plus" type carrier and AirTran doesn't measure up. Given the choice of AriTran or US I'd pick US every time.

So I'd appreciate very much that we have no future reference to Air Tran and focus on the value add that Frontier provides or the lack thereof.

Just for the record, we try to maintain some decorum in this forum and can do without the name calling.

I can add another one which may or may not matter much to you. Depending on exactly when you move and start flying, you may run into residual issues from integration. For example, if you already have a FF number and online profile at midwestairlines.com, today frontierairilnes.com does not yet recognize it. So for example if you book a trip in November on Frontier, you can't today log in with your midwestairlines.com log on to manage your reservation. You've already been able to earn miles across both programs for several months, but until they are fully a single program...which should come soon...there are these kinds of issues.

Many of the integration issues are targeted for completion before the end of the year, so points of occasional frustration for those of us in transition (like online check-in not available if you book a flight as the "other" airline than it is primarily sold as, or not being able to book award travel online for the "other" airline) should be gone soon. For people starting fresh as new Frontier customers, those are not really issues. But if you have a legacy relationship tied to Midwest like a FF account or online profile, that integration is still in the works for this fall.

I appreciate your feedback but after going through the wonderful US Res migration I don't think Frontier.Midwest/Republic could even come close to that debacle.

Given where I'm going to be flying to and from I don't see a real downside except TATL, also no one is running to thie thread to bury F9 either.

I guess my one question is how is award availability?

Sparrow... you're getting a great look at F9 by Knope. He is clearly our resident expert and you'll find his posts always informative. Mine on the other hand... well, I'll let you be the judge.

I'm a Summit (highest F9 FF tier) flyer and from my experience, reward redemption has ALWAYS been available to me. That's one of the bene's of being a Summit member... last seat availability rewards. However, I will say that rarely have I had much luck booking a Standard reward. There typically is decent Choice award availability though (57% - 80% more miles than Standard).

I am also curious why you dismiss Airtran out of hand. Did you have some bad experiences, or is there some aspect of their operation that does not satisfy your needs?

'VALUE' can mean many things. Certainly the fares on Airtran can represent value. As someone who samples many airlines, but really has no status on any, why no consideration of a specific airline?

How's this:
"The sour taste of poor customer service lingers long after the sweetness of a low fare is is gone"

Most stuff connects through ATL or MCO. Why on God's green earth would I go from say Fargo, ND to ATL to get to PHL? The three vendosr utilize a much more direct route tp PHL AND the west coast destinations I need to visit.

I just don't like a single thing about Air Tran right down to the livery, Rational? perhaps not.

I am GS on UA and Summit on F9. F9 is a good LCC carrier for my needs (Denver originating) and the fares are very competitive. A lot of destinations and travel times are cheaper on F9 and I try not to set foot on a commuter jet with UA except if I have no other choice.

What status would you be able to reach since this can make a difference in your decision. If you can reach Summit (25k miles) then the perks are pretty good. Free change of even the lowest priced tickets (only WN offers that to my knowledge), free same day change (need to be 1K on UA) and the stretch seating is not bad. The free change is a huge bonus for me with frequently changing travel plans. I did get burned on domestic UA a couple of times.

You will not see first class but for most short haul flights thats perfectly acceptable. I do like the (free for Ascent or Summit) Direct TV and a free beer after a long work day is also not a bad deal.
In general if I am on my own dime I would pick F9 over your other choices except if you can at least reach Gold status with DL or US.
Award availability is ok and if you have status you can work it to your advantage. I got 3 one way's to Mexico during Thanksgiving week for 3 x 30k miles and then bought the cheaper other way.
A mile in the F9 is for me worth less then 1/2 of a United mile but I do use those mainly for premium class international travel. You will miss out on those and especially US has very good international availability if you want to travel business or first international. Also they run very good special deals when they sell miles with 100% bonus on top of them.

I should be able to make Summit relatively easily. Gold on US would require a few MR's which I'm not really inclined to do. The Summit Perks seemed to dovetail with what I value on a domestic flight

Perhaps this will give you an idea of what you could expect with the new F9...
An Open Customer Love Letter to Frontier/Midwest Airlines