wcalvert

I tried to pre-pay a bag fee at IAH when purchasing a ticket for a flight well in the future and was told the baggage fee was $80ish.

Basically, no way to get the $5 cheaper bag at the counter like you would get if you booked online.

frugal_flyer

I went to Cleveland airport yesterday and got my CLE-LAS flight for $115 round trip, instead of the $151 I would have paid online. In other words, I verified for myself what everyone else in this thread has been saying, that one does indeed save $36 round trip.

The nice agent I spoke with also let me pick my seat for the originating flight, and wrote it down in pen on my payment ticket/bill. However, the email I received from Spirit had the seat not selected. I am just wondering if it will come up when I check in?

This was not a paid seat fee, btw. I just asked her if I had to wait until check-in to get my seat assignment, and she said I could just pick one. For the price I paid for the flight, I would sit anywhere, but this would be another incentive to book at the airport if it holds true.

FallenPlat

Hmmm. The first time I did this, I got free seats coming & going. The next time, just going. Both times the seats showed when I pulled up my reservation online at Spirit.com. I would ignore the email.

If the seats still don't show, then they've changed their protocols again, I'm afraid.

frugal_flyer

FallenPlat...

Come to think of it, neither the agent or I specified that the picked seat was only going out of Cleveland. Hell, maybe the selected seat will be for both flights, a nice surprise for sure.

I hope your experience holds true, i.e., not to worry about the email. I guess I'll just find out in 4 months...

FallenPlat

Except that you can pull up your reservation now, today, on Spirit.com and at least see what that shows. You'll need your confirmation number. Let us know what you see.

So, in theory at least, you shouldn't have to wait four months.

Big4Flyer

Or just make a dummy booking and see if the seat they wrote down is available.

frugal_flyer

Well, lo and behold, you were right, Fallen Plat. I logged in and use my confirmation code. My selected seat is listed, but only on the outbound flight.

So for future reference, I am now booking one-ways at the airport.

Allee8890

Has anyone ever gone to the airport the day you get the sale e-mails and still gotten the 17.99 off of the sale price of the flight?

Big4Flyer

You will still get $17.99 off the sale price but cannot use it with coupon codes or the $9 Fare Club. Hope this helps.

watrfall86

Thanks for this thread!
I actually sent my Dad to the airport today to buy our tickets for an upcoming family vacation (we live 2 hours away from the airport, but he lives only 30 minutes).
We ended up with a little over $70 savings over the $9 Club online rate (and I didn't have to pay for the fare club to get the savings) plus the agent gave us all seat assignments free of charge.
I didn't want to pay for seat assignments, but as one of the travelers is only 5 years old, I didn't want to risk him getting seated by himself. She assigned us all seats together without charge, which would have been about $40/person, so that's another $120 ($80 if I risked being separated from my husband and child).
A flight I thought was going to cost us almost $800, ended up costing only a bit over $600.

linglingfool

Must be something about the staff at CLE. I made a booking earlier in the week and was pleasantly surprised when she agreed to assign seats. Checked when I got home, though, and same as you -- outbound only. Oh well, better than nothing.

DaveBlaine

watrfall86

Join Date: Jan 2013

Posts: 1

I'm glad you finally found something worth commenting on.

mherdeg

Some trips that family have booked recently on a seasonal NK route:

* $25.10 BOS-CLE one way (booked at the airport)

* $40.20 BOS-CLE round trip (booked at the airport)

* $68.20 BOS-CLE round trip (booked online, including $35.98 in fees; could have bought at airport for $32.22 r/t)

This route is bewilderingly cheap, one of the cheapest non-mistake fares I've seen friends or family book. Cheaper even than the old AirTran U $69 one-way standby fares.

wcalvert

Edit: WHAT I WROTE BELOW IS WRONG BUT I'LL LEAVE IT THERE SO YOU CAN READ HOW I WAS WRONG

Just wanted to note that anytime I need to get back from a Spirit RT, I've been purchasing AIG Travel Guard silver. It is really really cheap (between $15 and $20 per trip) and provides 100% of the declared non-refundables, but also provides $500 in trip interruption coverage. Basically, if spirit cancels the return then it pays up to $500 for any other flight (minus whatever Spirit refunds you). (EDIT: ONLY FOR 24 HOUR WEATHER DELAYS)

Cheap cheap peace of mind if you absolutely have to get back.

*Note, I'm 30 and part of the coverage has medical coverage, so for my 75 year old stepdad it was significantly more.

linglingfool

Just booked a similar fare ORD-MSP that had the same fare on the outbound, of which $10 was taxes. Not sure how they're making money here.

Are you sure that's true? Typically trip interruption coverage only applies to certain "unforeseen" events, like illness/injury, particularly bad weather, terrorism, layoffs, and the failure of the carrier. Reading the CoI for Travel Guard, I don't see anything that would indicate otherwise.