Frequent Flying On Frontier
 

I have a friend who lives in Las Vegas and is traveling quite frequently on business to destinations all over the USA. So far I think she has been extremely haphazard about her travel. I was a high elite on AA for the past few years, elite in the past on other airlines, but I never fly the ULCC's.

I might be taking over her travel arrangements and I think she could make top-tier on one of the mainline carriers, which would of course vastly improve her travel experience. But Frontier might be vastly cheaper.

What advice would you give her? I mean, I see this GoWild pass - can you really fly anywhere you want to go for a year for $700? That seems crazy. What's her best plan if she chose to use Frontier?

Frontier would be rough for business travel. They kill routes entirely, cancel flights several weeks in advance, and cancel flights at the time of flight. Also, there are rarely multiple flights to the same destination on the same day. So, there is little backup to make a business meeting.

By th3 time you buy a few late notice tickets on a real airline, then you have lost all the savings.

The general feeling here on the board is do not use them if you really have to get some place.

Plus the restrictions on a Go Wild pass would make it worthless for business travel. Free seats are available only the day before the flight. And not always. Then, Frontier charges for everything else.

You would be best asking your manager what she values in her travel experience and what she is willing to pay for. No point flying F9 if she needs wifi access or is willing to pay a premium for domestic F. F9 routinely does schedule changes 60 days before flights and has on-time issues. If she values price, looking at a ULCC may make sense if it fits her flight schedule.

I think many businesses do use them more now that their routes have been adjusted. The experience isn't that much worse unless someone has high status on others. Especially if one gets status on Frontier, so the seats and carry on bags are free. The one drawback on Frontier are the schedule changes but most business travelers aren't booking much 3 months in advance. I definitely have noticed a change in the passengers on non Vegas routes. The DCA flight now looks like a United flight.

the main caveat for go wild is you can only get confirmed bookings the day before flight departure for domestic travel and starting 10 days before flight departure for international travel. most people i know who got this pass are drs and nurses who work shifts, so they have highly flexible schedule to take advantage of this pass. even then, i heard that it is not always you can find something, so not something i would recommend for your friend

not my experience, but i also heard a lot about the issues with these ulcc, from lack of live support to overzealous gate agents enforcing the carry on limits to flight cancellations. personally, i would rather not take that risk since the price isnt that much lower. there is even less reason to for business travels

i believe this is a related to another question you asked in the aa forum. as mentioned, aa eshopping portal can be a quick way for her to earn status even without a cc. for example, signing up for motley fool epic gives 8.3k lp, blue apron gives 4.5k lp, at&t gives 6.2k lp, verizon 5.2k lp. hotels car rental can also add a tidy sum.

Count me in with those who say the poor handling when things go wrong and dealing with that will wipe out your savings. Some routes aren't even daily, the schedule is thin, and if a flight gets cancelled then the only things they'll offer are rebooking to another flight of THEIRS or a refund. In the case of a high-demand route if your upcoming days are fully booked you're really hosed. MAYBE you could get a connecting flight to sub for a non-stop, but don't count on it. The idea of having to wait possibly for days for something that isn't a weather disaster or something along those lines will just be unacceptable for biz travelers, but the other option is to pay out-of-pocket, last minute, to fly someone else. In that sense it really IS A Whole Different Animal (TM).