Spirit Air’s Free Spirit program now partners with Rewards Network (formerly iDine) and has introduced Free Spirit Dining. You earn 5 FREE SPIRIT miles per dollar spent at participating restaurants.
So now you can choose to earn miles for your dining with United, American, US Airways, Delta, Alaska, Southwest, or… Spirit.
Spirit’s miles expire after 90 days of inactivity unless you have their co-branded credit card and charge to it every month (although presumably charging somewhat less frequently can meet the 90 day requirement). Some airlines have close-in redemption fees. Spirit’s fees start within 180 days of travel.
After Greyhound started a loyalty program in 2006, I coined the conundrum of having nothing good to offer “the Greyhound Road Rewards problem.”
Spirit has this in spades. They do not have redemption partners. The reward for traveling on Spirit is… more travel on Spirit.
They may have a 13 year old boy’s sense of humor but they are a very unpleasant airline.
Why, oh why, would anyone choose to credit their restaurant mileage earning to Spirit when they could earn United or American miles for the same meal?
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Spirit Airlines is the slimiest airline still flying. Their bank card sign up offer is a scam and they cancel routes w/o notification or accommodation on another carrier. Hold time to talk to an ncompetent SE Asian customer service rep can take the better part of an hour. Their corporate office does not respond to complaints and the Government is after them for showing airfares as taxes. Freddie Laker, Ryan Airlines are Cadillac carriers compared to “Spiton Airlines”.
“They may have a 13 year old boy’s sense of humor…….
Why, oh why, would anyone choose to credit their restaurant mileage earning to Spirit when they could earn United or American miles for the same meal?”
Because the customer might be a 13 years old boy.
(Yeah, sure, if a 13 year old has a CC in his name and is signed up for the Spirit FF program.)
I have flown Spirit one time, ATL to LAS on a promotion for 69 cents. I overpaid. It is a Greyhound bus with wings.
If I were flying from Atl to Las for .69 why would I expect it to feel like anything other than a bus? If you care about points or luxury or meals or lounges the last place to look is Spirit. On the other hand, how ridiculously unfair to compare them in a column featuring a discussion about whether one should choose the burger or fish and chips in the BA Heathrow lounge. It’s a cheap airline; last one that I know of.
I hate being dissonance in the echo chamber, but they do have excellent values in their award chart.
Perfect example: I fly multiple times a year to Nicaragua. Having the co-brand credit card means I can do that for 15k miles with decent-ish availability. Every other airline? 35k+ miles (excepting Avios, where my inopportune location hurts me personally, but helps others).
Fees and all factored in, I can earn 1.5-2x the value on Spirit miles than on anybody else. I think about that every time I’m looking at paying 70k Skypesos for the same flight (crap availability for non-elites).
Small note: their terms don’t line up with the other loyalty programs, for sure, and it seems a lot like they really would rather not have one. Still, there is surprising value in the program.
Life is too short to fly Spirit Airlines….
I’ve never flown with Spirit. So, I’ve got no dog is this fight.
However, they do fly safely from point A to point B, and do so less expensively if you just need no frills transportation.
Not liking Spirit shows a sense of entitlement on people’s parts, I believe. I only started flying for the first time three years ago, and it was on Spirit. I flew “first class” from DFW to Vegas for my birthday for about $250 dollars round trip. Everyone I dealt with was nice and accommodating.
My family flew for the first time together two years ago on Spirit. We were all able to fly first class (two lap infants, two adults) for $500 dollars including two bags and quite a bit of stuff – diaper bags, car seats, strollers – all free. I understand that may be FAA regulations though.
Through manufactured spending, I’ve been able to rack up about 60,000 miles on Spirit through their Mastercard. This will get my family 3 flights for all four of us to a lot of different places. It won’t be when it is most convenient to fly, and it won’t be at the best times, but I will make it work and we will fly those routes – could be a four day weekend trip or something to that end.
So why would you want to do this? Because, you understand what Spirit is, you game the system and you find those niches that serve you best. 5000 points with the mastercard for a round trip within 1250 miles is about as good as it gets in the industry. I have found that if the non-tax fare is under $75 dollars, and it’s off-peak, you’ll get the 5000 point fare – and there are a ton of these.
I will also note that Spirit’s award-booking engine on their website is very easy to use/navigate. While I do not like the rolling 90 day expiration, I am grateful for their well-designed website.
The problem with Spirit is that if there is a problem, they do not work to fix it. I.E. cancelled flight, had to wait 3 days for replacement flight and no hotel reimbursement. (I paid for a SW Airlines flight out of pocket the next day) On hold for an hour with my complaint and no satisfaction. An A320 to Guatemala another time had seats with broken arm rests and lots of duct tape used in the cabin. I only fly them when they have LOTS of other advantages over available flights from my airport. DTW
If i buy a beer at a local restaurant every 90 days, my spirit miles never expire.
The American or United points are more valuable, so for a big meal, I will use that dining plan.
I am a long time member of the spirit dinning club and I have had no issues to date. Simple program you eat, you earn points and you fly cheaper. No sure how people can bash that !