We all want to save money on the everyday things. Most of us work long for our hard earned money. The corporate world is all about customer appreciation and they are very thankful for every dollar we spend with them. And that’s why they appreciate us as customers.
Well, here is one story that just shows you how much they appreciate us.
My wife and I are currently living about a 2 hour commercial flight away from each other due to our jobs. So we try to see each other as much as possible and due to flight prices being pretty affordable with the cheap airlines, it is only about $100 for a full round trip flight from Las Vegas to Portland, OR. This is flying with Spirit Airlines.
Between the two of us we have done the flight a few times and on one of the flights I was lucky to be in the lucky seat and win 5000 airline miles with Spirit. The interesting part was that that flight was late about 3 hours also. Well, at least I won something. I also received an email from Spirit the next day telling me that they were sorry about the delay and are offering me a $50 voucher for a future flight.
“Dang”, I haven’t had that much luck in a long time! And a company is actually pro-actively sorry about their screw-up. I was impressed!
Booking a flight from Las Vegas to Portland with my voucher
Now I am booking another flight with this airline, thinking I will save a dollar or two.
Being on the website and punching in the letters and numbers to choose my origin, destination and flight dates I am kind of excited about seeing my wife and saving some money.
The total amount for this particular flight will be $106.38 and on the checkout page it is conveniently split up into the flight fare and taxes.
That’s good, because the voucher only applies to the flight portion of the fare, not the taxes. Well, at least I’ll save about $28 on that flight. That’s pretty cool!
Flight fare from Las Vegas to Portland
As you can see in the screenshot something is kind of funny. The flight portion is $28.83 but the voucher is showing only $8.11. There must be something wrong for sure. So I grab my phone and call Spirit Airlines. After talking with a computer for about 5 minutes, which has a hard time understanding anything I say, I finally get connected to an agent. Asking them how this all makes sense and being put on hold for another couple minutes, they tell me that the actual flight portion of the fare is only $8.11.
Uhm, what? So how come they show me all the taxes and fees separate from the flight portion, that still includes taxes and fees? Guess what, the agent was unable to tell me why that is the case.
Using airline miles instead of a free voucher
So I am thinking to myself that I could probably use some of my miles instead. That would certainly save me some money, right?
I am going through the reservation process again, this time trying to use my miles:
Booking a flight with Spirit Airline miles
Look at these numbers! They are charging a total of 35,000 miles for a flight from Las Vegas to Portland and back. If you compare that to another airline I used in the past, for about the same amount of miles I was able to fly from Portland, OR to Hamburg, Germany (one way).
Oh, and don’t forget that they will still charge you $86.20 in addition to the miles.
So even if all those miles and vouchers apply only to the flight portion of a flight, the whole thing doesn’t make any sense. The voucher-flight portion is $8.11 and the miles-flight portion is $20.18. In their list of fees, the flight portion is $28.83.
So what is it now? I assume that this is all just made up anyways.
I understand that the margins on those cheap flights are not huge, but at least make up your numbers in a way that they make sense!
And just to check, I also looked at what the same flight is with other carriers.
Use https://flights.google.com to compare flight prices!
Also, be aware that at least Spirit Airlines Credit card rewards are useless because they rack up airline miles! Here you can see clearly what they are worth. Better get yourself a credit card with a cashback reward, or airline miles for an airline that appreciates you as a customer. They are out there!