pinniped

Question for anyone who has ever taken a Spirit flight and *not* paid for a premium seat: could you tell, based on the available seats before OLCI started, what the seat assignment algorithm was?

I will be checking in 4 people on a single PNR next week, MCI-LAS. I will be able to check in exactly at T-24 hours, if that is advantageous. We will be checking 2 bags, so proximity to the front of the plane is not an issue. I'm mainly concerned about whether we will have 4 adjacent seats.

The flight is 100% sold out, but most of the seatmap is available for selection. A vast majority of passengers have *not* prepaid for seats.

Also: my base fare on these tickets is $0.01, total cost of $16 each. Is there any chance that Spirit would not allow me to check in, knowing that we would be among the most advantageous to IDB if necessary? I have had this exact thing happen on Delta, leading to an actual IDB. I'm hoping that Spirit's simplistic systems are more time-based...it's the last guy checking in who gets hosed.

ciaohound

I fly Spirit quite often..We always let them pick our seats. Usually being on the same PNR,my husband and I are" always" seated together. EXCEPT on our last trip which resulted in our being ROWS apart. Asked at the gate if we could possibly be seated together, we were assigned 2 seats together. We have tried to figure out the rhyme or reason as to when the best times are to do our boarding pass (@24 hrs.exactly or 2 hours before flight) and never get the same results. Could be in front or last row (which,by the way is NOT a desirable seat)
That being said if you want to sit together BUY seats or take the gamble and roll the dice!

pinniped

Was the seatmap pretty full when you checked in and got separated? Did you check in 24 hours in advance?

We don't really need all four together: 3 and 1 or 2 and 2 would be okay.

Big4Flyer

I've noticed the same thing as ciaohound and the same thing on all the ULCCs including G4 and F9. I've checked in a T-24 and all the way up until arrival at the airport and haven't found any particular logic although I have found that when checking in earlier we've been more likely to automatically get seats assigned together. If I were you I would check in at T-24 and if, by chance, you aren't assigned seats together, you can still pay to move together or arrive at the airport as early as possible, before people start checking in at the airport, to request seats together. I've never paid for seat selections and never not been able to sit by my traveling partners.

pinniped

Will do the T-24 checkin. (I still can't believe people actually wait until the airport to check-in for *any* flight when there is an option and incentive to do otherwise.)

Contemplating a hedge of buying 1 BFS seat and checking in the other three for random seats. I refuse to pay for a regular coach seat assignment on any airline, but I can justify BFS as a "quasi-upgrade". Whenever I fly solo or with one other person on Spirit, I always buy BFS. It's just that this trip is with the kids and there are only 2 BFS left anyway...

pinniped

Result: checked in at T-24, to the minute. Got 29-ABCD. Second-to-last row, but all together.

Good enough result I guess...