Category Archives: Something learned

The Frustration and Folly of Spirit Airlines, Continued

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Note to self:  if Spirit Airlines ever requests volunteers to get bumped and offers a future round-trip flight as an enticement, just pass.  It is so not worth the hassle!

To recap:  Today was my final day to book my “free flight” on Spirit Airlines — remember, I had a sixty-day window from the date of issue to book my ticket.  There were two problems…

  1. while the voucher was valid for an entire year from the date of issue (two months ago), their flight booking window is only open until September 7th.  So if I wanted to fly around Thanksgiving or Christmas, no dice.
  2. the voucher has so many restrictions attached to it that it is basically worthless.  Here is what I found out..

I have dejectedly come to the realization that there would be no trips to Central America or the East Coast for me this summer, due to all the flights being not available for my particular fare.  There are only two flights from Portland that go anywhere:  Las Vegas and Los Angeles.  I decided that at least I can fly to Las Vegas over a weekend using my free flights.  I came up with some dates in February, May and June.  I called the reservation line, went through all those maddening prompts and recordings, and finally reached an agent.  I then gave her all the combinations of dates to use my flight.  And guess what?  Every single one of them were not available…

  • LAS – PDX leave 2/10 and return 2/12:  not available
  • LAS – PDX leave 2/17 and return 2/19:  not available
  • LAS – PDX leave 5/5 and return 5/7:  not available
  • LAS – PDX leave 5/12 and return 5/14:  not available
  • LAS – PDX leave 5/19 and return 5/21:  not available
  • LAS – PDX leave 6/21 and return 6/23:  not available
  • LAS – PDX leave 6/22 and return 6/24:  not available
  • LAS – PDX any date at all??!!!:  not available

Wow, just wow.  Exasperated.  I pressed the agent why every single flight was not available.  She explained that “the type of class is not compatible with the voucher.”  So what exactly is my class?  Listen close, this is important.  My free flight voucher is classified as an “O.R.U” class.  On all the flights I tried to book, the only available classes were in ‘C’ and ‘K’ classes.  All ‘O.R.U’ classes were sold out.  They are sold out because the agent explained that there are only one or two seats available per flight.  Deciphering the reasoning that the agents gave to me yesterday, I can conclude that my special voucher is considered a non-revenue passenger, and if they can’t make money off of me, then they will restrict the heck out of any passengers that are using this type of fare.  And hence the policy (is it a policy?  I don’t know, but sure seems like it) that only one or two seats per flight are available for this ‘O.R.U’ class.

I went round and round with the agent and finally asked her to find me ANY flight from Portland, OR leaving in May or June to ANY destination that has availability with my special (useless) voucher.  And so she searched, and searched, and searched.  And guess what?  NOTHING.  No flights available with my special voucher.  So after four hours total on the telephone with five different agents, the bottom line is that my ticket is pretty much worthless and cannot be redeemed.  I stated this to her point blank.  She put me on hold, and returned with some news … she spoke to her supervisor, and low and behold she could suddenly book me on a flight from Portland to Las Vegas on June 21st, returning on June 23rd.  All I had to do was pay the taxes.

At this point I was desperate and just wanted something for all the time and effort I had invested in this endeavor.  Sure, fine, I’ll pay the taxes.  It came out to $87, which seemed pretty high to me for a flight that would only cost me $200 if I had booked it online.  She said it would be $39.77 flying down and $46.75 on the return.  It still seemed kinda high, but I accepted.  She quickly processed the flight and before I knew it, I had a confirmation code and she was trying her best to get me off the phone.

And finally, after all of that hassle, I have a flight somewhere.  Not somewhere I envisioned using this “free flight” for, but at least I could claim some sort of victory.  But alas, my victory is hollow and not fulfilling.  I checked my email receipt for my ticket, and found out that the total taxes I should have paid should only have come out to around $30.  Not $87.  Broken down, Spirit Airlines is charging a $15 fuel surcharge and a $25 phone agent fee.  Plus some other miscellaneous fees that are clearly NOT government issued taxes.  So once again I have been scammed.  Or have I?  With any thing in life, there are always fine print details.  And after spending more time on the Spirit web site after the fact, here is what I find:

 

Restrictions:

Please remember, a Round Trip Future Travel Voucher can only be used one time with no remaining value after its use. It can only be used by the customer it was issued to and is only applied to the flight portion of base fare excluding carrier fees and excludes promotional fares, including $9 Fare Club bookings. It cannot be redeemed for cash and cannot be used for any other products including vacation packages, car rentals, bags, and seats. Round Trip Future Travel Vouchers must be booked within 60 days of issuance for travel on any flight dates available in the system. Voucher use is restricted to certain classes of service. Restrictions may also apply during peak travel periods and to certain destinations.

So there you have it.  I can’t really complain, because that passage above basically tells me what I have found out.  And what I have found out is this:  If you so happen to get one of these awesome Spirit Airlines future round trip flight vouchers, don’t get all starry eyed like I did and dream about using that ticket to fly out to Central America or the Caribbean, heck, probably even out to most major US cities on their destinations map.  You will just be disappointed and crushed into sadness and hopelessness.  Because Spirit Airlines will do their very best to not allow that redemption to happen.  They have spelled out that the ticket has restrictions during peak travel periods, certain destinations and the class of service.  Which I have concluded is pretty much every single flight.  And despite all I have done, all I get to show for this is a $90 round trip flight to Las Vegas, which I could probably get for the same price, or perhaps every cheaper, on the Spirit web site a month before hand.  Lesson learned, and please don’t make my same mistake.

And so I end this post as I started it.

Note to self:  if Spirit Airlines ever requests volunteers to get bumped and offers a future round-trip flight as an enticement, just pass.  It is so not worth the hassle!

The Frustration and Folly of Spirit Airlines

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Spirit Airlines.  Yeah, I know.  Lots of complaints against them.  They are an ultra-low cost airline, famous for nickel and diming customers from charging for water in-flight to charging customers to speak to someone on the phone.  If you know what you are getting and are prepared to avoid the fees, Spirit Airlines is actually a pretty good way to go.  I have used them many times to go to Las Vegas — one time I even flew round trip for under $75!

On my latest trip to Las Vegas, I was voluntarily bumped and I accepted a future round-trip voucher so somebody else could take my seat.  I got on the next Spirit flight back to Portland the very next day, and it was a minor inconvenience because I had in my possession a future flight voucher that was valid for international destinations!  There was just one big bit of fine print:  although my voucher was valid for one year, I had to make the reservation within sixty days.  Well, today marks day #59.  Better start booking a flight for the summer!  Or not….

I spent almost two hours speaking to five different Spirit Airlines representatives.  Here are the flights that I asked them to book for me using my round-trip voucher:

  • Strike:  Portland to Cancun, December.  No flights loaded that far into the future.
  • Strike:  Las Vegas to Lima, Peru.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike:  Las Vegas to Guatemala City, Guatemala.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike:  Las Vegas to Bogota, Columbia.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike:  Las Vegas to San Salvador, El Salvador.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike:  Las Vegas to San Pedro Sula, Honduras.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike:  Las Vegas to Managua, Nicaragua.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike:  Las Vegas to Medellin, Columbia.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike:  Las Vegas to Cartegena, Columbia.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike:  Los Angeles to Lima, Peru.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike: Los Angeles to Guatemala City, Guatemala.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike: Los Angeles to Bogota, Columbia.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike: Los Angeles to San Salvador, El Salvador.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike: Los Angeles to San Pedro Sula, Honduras.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike: Los Angeles to Managua, Nicaragua.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike: Los Angeles to Medellin, Columbia.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike: Los Angeles to Cartegena, Columbia.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike:  Fort Lauderdale, FL to Lima, Peru.  No flights available in June, July or August.
  • Strike:  Fort Lauderdale, FL to Guatemala City, Guatemala.  No flights available in June, July or August.

No flights available, huh?

Well, it turns out that all the flights above ARE available, and they HAVE seats to purchase.  But ah, there just happens to be NO seats available for non-revenue passengers.  That’s me, the guy with the free ticket.  One of the agents explained that on each flight, there are only a handful of seats available and earmarked for non-revenue passengers.  And apparently, all the flights above are completely exhausted of any non-revenue seats.  So all of a sudden, these great plans I had of taking a week long trip in June to Central America are pretty much squashed.

Okay, so no flights for me to Central America.  I can cope.  I had one last back up — why not just a simple flight from Portland to Baltimore, MD?  I can rent a car, go to Washington DC and visit the Smithsonian Museums, perhaps check out some amusement parks and ride some extreme roller coasters.  Certainly there will be some seat availability for that flight, right?  Guess again.  Guess again.

And there is the frustration and folly of Spirit Airlines.  Sure, I have this free ticket voucher, but it is pretty much useless because there are NO seats available for this non-revenue passenger.  So I give up for tonight.  Tomorrow is my last day to salvage any value I have left from this “free” ticket.  But something tells me that I will still come up empty handed in my quest to redeem this, following their rules.  Sheesh.  What a waste of my time.

Something Learned #3: Qigong Part 8

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I almost didn’t go to tonight’s class.  Almost.  But I went.  Game 7 of the World Series was on between the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians.  Plus I had to check in for my flight to Las Vegas at 8:05pm, right in the middle of class.  So I was a little distracted as we went through some new movements.  I was able to check in, but I was five minutes too late and received a boarding pass number of B16 — which means that I might not get a preferred window seat, but I should still find an aisle seat and overhead bin storage space for my bag.

What was interesting tonight is that the time moved slowly — I thought that time had moved faster than it actually did.  Especially when we were sitting down and meditating.  Yeah, I may have dozed off just a tiny bit.  But I swear it felt like more time elapsed than just ten minutes.  Such an odd and surprising feeling!  Our discussion tonight centered on having positive experiences and absorbing that into our memories so that we can recall how we felt and to let that stay with us for future reference.  And the biggest takeaway is a balance of five positive interactions or compliments to your spouse for every one negative that might come out.  The negative will be remembered more than one or two positives, so you gotta have five positive comments every day to maintain a happy relationship.  Cool!

Something Learned #3: Qigong Part 7

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I finally remembered to take some pictures of the space where my Qigong class is!  And once again during our chair exercises, I dozed and drifted into some sort of sleeping consciousness that probably only last two seconds at a time, but felt longer each time I snapped out of my daze.  This week the class returned to its normal class size, which helped with the discussions, questions and sharing of people’s stories.  My story was one that I will probably bring up next week — can it be possible to be practice mindfulness while hating something that you are doing at the same time?  I bring this up because over the last two months I have attempted to run a mile at least twice a week, and I try to do so at my fastest pace possible.  And I HATE it!  It is just so hard.  Mentally I get defeated so easily because I am laboring with my breathing and my running just isn’t in sync, still after seven weeks of doing this.  And all the while I am running, I am definitely in the present moment because it sucks so bad!  I don’t think of anything else, I am just super focused on finishing my run, so that it can be finished and over with!  So that is my question.  Why compels me to do something I totally hate??!!

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