It's the suggestion that bloggers are liars that really irks me.

What's funny to me, is back in July the Miami Herald ran a story about Spirit's long lines and check in process. This same spokesman, Alison Russell, was asked to respond, and she blamed the airport. Looks like even tradition media is full of it.

I guess Spirit is completely infallible in any circumstance. Amazing.

I always laugh at the small companies who really need every last customer, who don't understand the power of WOM (yes, even from those new fangled blog things), and still have no interest in supporting such things.

The reality is that this company is small potatoes if the CEO is dealing with customer service issues. They're also clearly not able to hire very good corporate spokespeople, and that shows.

As the saying goes, don't attribute to malice what can be explained by cluelessness.

Spirit Airlines is truly a great study on customer service gone haywire! Plain courtesy, respect for customers do not cost anything. Never underestimate the power of goodwill and a happy customer.

I'm not surprised they are not able to get good corporate spokespersons or management for that matter. Look no further than the CEO and you can see why.

Tick tuck tick tuck, let's see how long this airline will last in this market. Or perhaps how long will the top management last?

I'm currently going through a dispute with Spirit Airlines over a $228.80 charge that was made by mistake for a flight 76 days in advance of the departure. I called them immediately to cancel so that I could look for a different flight that would better suit my needs. They were very rude on the phone and the supervisor wouldn't even talk to me. She wouldn't even get on the phone and talk to me! After contacting the corporate offices by mail (they have no listed phone number) I was answered by email with a very non personal "Our return policy is as follows". After reiterating my dispute to the Corporate Consumer Relations Department, I received a reply email stating:

"Let me reiterate the non refundable policy as stated below.

Sincerely,

Niurka Paulino
Corporate Consumer Relations
Spirit Airlines."

This company obviously does not care to spend any of its time on customer service.

I have never been more shocked by lack of customer service. These people go out of their way to rip you off and give you bad information.

We booked a flight on Spirit Air to Cancun with a layover in Lauderdale. We unfortunately had to cancel the second part which was to Cancun which we paid $100 for. When I called them they said that there was no worries, they would issue me a credit for the $100 to be used at any time in the future. Well, in trying to locate this credit today I wound up having to call them. I was kept on hold over an hour only to find out that the credit was expired. I asked to speak to a supervisor which was impossible, and I was told it was unnecessary to speak to one since there was nothing that could be done.
I tried to locate the email addresses of the corporate officials and of course they are no where to be found.
I thought they were a reputable company...guess I was WRONG!

Spirit treated my husband and me quite badly and unfairly. They cost us hundreds of dollars in re-booked flights and car rentals. And they also neglected to checked our identification twice on the same day in Detroit. Trust me, I sent a hot letter to Homeland Security.

Spirit airlines charged my credit card three times for the same forty dollar checked bag fee on 1/02/08. As of 2/11/08, I have recieved nothing but B.S. from them. Initially they said (on 1/09/08), "Our accounting department will review it and they will make a decision in 7-14 business days". Nothing! finally I sent in a dispute form to my credit card co. Today I see they removed a $4.00 inflight charge instead of the 2 extra $40.00 bag check charges. It appears they have a policy of systematic theft from customers and completely ignoring any query's or promises from their reservation people who double as customer service and smoke blowers! Its ridiculous. They think We will just go away if they play around long enough. They are crooks.

I am having a problem with pre-purchasing checked baggage as well. I received an e-mail reminding me to pre-purchase my checked baggage for a 50% discound. I proceeded to do so, checking one bage each for me and my mother, both going to Nassau and coming from Nassau. During the transaction, their site had a "run time error" and I was only credited with the two bags going to Nassau; however, my credit card was charged the full amount. Since that time, I have spent in excess of 9 hours total on hold waiting to speak with somebody and have sent 4 e-mails. Needless to say, I was finally ready to give in and just spend the additional money and re-purchase the bags coming from Nassau. I did so, and although my credit card has been charged AGAIN, their site still shows me as not paying for the return trip! I will never fly this airline again!!!

You people need to move on. I don't understand why somebody hasn't sued this airline regardless of the small amounts of loss. You Americans sue for non-properly pressed/lost pants for crying out loud, why not bad customer service.

My family and I flew Spirit for Christmas to Grand Cayman, only one way down as their fare for the return flights was 3 times the cost with US Air, which I used to come back. When I set up the itinerary in October, based on what I saw on the website, I thought "this seems like a neat company", so I joined the frequent flyer club and the $9 club, and even got their co-branded MasterCard for the extra miles and for the free continuing membership in the $9 club [after you pay the first $9 for a trial, the privilege of getting email notices of special deals is $29.95 -- now going to $39.95 -- or "complimentary" for 3 months if you take the MasterCard and then free for every card billing cycle if you use the card at least once in a cycle -- check the website for this]. I started getting $9 special fare email offers right away, and checked about possibly getting one of these deals. Every time I clicked in [you can't buy any ticket costing less than $10 over the phone -- only on line], the site indicated that all the seats were gone and I could get the same seat for $149 or $189, etc., even when I clicked in immediately after receiving the email. When I called [you generally get the Phillipines call center and the communication is spotty at best, and while generally nice, these reps are clearly undertrained, underequipped and very overworked] to inquire about getting one of these special "offers", I was told "there are a very limited number of seats offered in every deal, and you must have clicked in too late and simply found all the allocated seats already sold" so the customer is invited to pay the much higher fare to get the ticket. Right! Anyway, online, using my Spirit MasterCard,I purchased bag check vouchers a few days before departure so that not only could I access the 2 bag/person limit -- during busy periods for some destinations, passengers are restricted to only 1 bag if they show up at the check in desk without having prepurchased checked bag vouchers -- but also so I would pay only $5 for checking a bag rather than the usual "show up" bag check fee of $10, and risking getting sent home for having excessive baggage, or having to pay $50 or more for the second bag as a gross violation of temporary holiday bag limit regulations. Problem 1: when I got my credit card statement for December [after getting home in January] I found they had also charged $29.95 for the $9 club membership along with the bag check voucher charges, even though I had used the card as specified in the fine print. I called Spirit to discuss this [as is the usual practice for disputing unauthorized merchant overcharges] and they claimed this was something I had to take up with MasterCard, not them, but if I wanted to cancel my $9 club membership and stop getting the worthless [my word] bait-and-switch [also my word] $9 fare club special email "offers", I could cancel -- on line only as they would not accept my cancellation orally in the call. Right here let me say that in the many calls I have made to their 800 number, I have not had less than a 20 minute wait to speak to anyone, sometimes waiting 1 or more hours. [And also, by the way, option 4, which is "other service", i.e. "customer" service, ALWAYS rings fast-busy when you select it, meaning you cannot directly access "customer" service from the phone menu. If you press "1" for reservations and then ask the agent to connect you, they agree to do so and 1 or 2 hours later you are still on hold, without having ever reached "customer" service.] I immediately went online and canceled the useless $9 club membership, and as directed wrote a full explanation to Barclay's MasterCard. I got back a brush off letter saying basically that I had voluntarily joined the club and therefore knew I was liable for the charge and they were not going to even take up with Spirit the issue of my being charged without my authorization for something the policy states is "complimentary". When I called Barclay's MasterCard about this response, they said that part of the terms of their agreement to establish the co-branded credit card was for them not to allow disputes by customers for the $29.95 overcharge! It seems this was a scam that was already preconceived and agreed to by both Barclay's and Spirit, and not only I, but all the others who had been ripped off, had no recourse, nor would Barclay's take up with Spirit any issue of unauthorized charges or fraudulent overcharges. I take the position that unauthorized charges to my credit card, no matter by whom, is a form of fraud, and as a MasterCard customer, the least they could do is pursue the dispute with the offending merchant. They refused based on their "agreement" with Spirit that this [and other unidentified scams by Spirit]conflict between a customer and Spirit is not something they will pursue and the customer is wrong from the beginning and loses while the company is right and wins. Amazing! Problem 2: On the flight down, they "lost" one of my 7 prepaid checked bags. This sort of thing happens, right? Well, it seems they only fly the Grand Cayman routes [at that time] Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so after waiting behind about 50 other passengers with "lost" bags, I finally got up to the claim desk [operated by Cayman Air at the airport baggage claim section -- Spirit does not have a single employee in Grand Cayman] where I was told that my bag might come on the next flight and since this was Sunday [right before Christmas eve], I would surely not see the bag before Thursday at the earliest as Spirit has a policy of not using other airlines [for example those that fly every in every day] to bring in overlooked bags. P.S. when we were waiting on the tarmac at FLL, I did see several overfilled baggage trolleys that Spirit personnel just did not load. Little did I now that my bag was most likely one of those still on the tarmac when we took off. I was informed by the Cayman Air rep that after the first 24 hours without the bag, I would be entitled by the regulations to a compensation of $25 per day, and further he provided a 1-800 number for me to "check" on the status of the delivery of my bag, and further I would be lucky to get the bag by Thursday's flight because he had a 3 inch thick stack of other lost bag claims from prior flights that needed to be processed before mine would even be considered. Luckily I was staying past Thursday so if I did get the bag by then, I could use my belongings, but others, particularly families [one family of 5 ahead of me in line got none of their bags at all and were only staying to the following Saturday] would be without their personal belongings for virtually all of their trip. Spirit just left them to their own devices. I called the 1-800 Spirit lost bag number that I had been given more than 50 times between Sunday and the following Thursday and each time the recording announced: "due to an unusually large volume of calls, all our representatives are busy. Please call back at another time", and they terminated the call. That number never did produce a connection or a conversation. I was never able to find out when or if I was in fact going to get the bag at all so it was not clear what I should do to replace the personal items. After several days of not knowing anything, I did get the bag late Thursday after Christmas. After I got home, I filed a claim as per the instructions on the reverse side of my copy of the claim form. Just now I have received not one but two responses from Spirit. The first one says that since I did not have a "round trip" reservation, I have no standing to make any claim for lost baggage, as their policy is to honor claims from only customers who hold a "round trip", not one-way itinerary and they were outright rejecting my claim based on that. So even though they "lost" a bag on a single flight, the fact that I did not hold a return reservation, prevented me from making any kind of claim for the event that occurred on that single flight. Right! The second response said that even though I had filed my claim timely, I had not included "receipts" for personal items purchased during each of the 24 hour periods that the bag was undelivered, and consequently I would receive no reimbursement as I had not complied with regulations. It is their position that I had not complied with regs, and so any claim for improper customer treatment, inconvenience, loss of time, loss of money, etc., was just my own affair and they take no responsibility or concern at all in any of it. I am still working on this, but I just thought you readers ought to know some of the details of just one horrible experience with Spirit. Plain and simple: Spirit is not only a bunch of "crooks", which I quote, as one blogger has already said, but customer service is somewhere between non-existent and rudely dismissive -- take your pick. I might also mention that the Cayman Air rep gave me a corporate phone number for Spirit in Miramar, Fla, and when I finally reached someone to tell about my difficulties, they were horribly rude and demanded to know how I got the number and warned me in the strongest terms not to use it to try to reach anyone in the company at any future time. This is Spirit Air.

My family and I flew Spirit for Christmas to Grand Cayman, only one way down as their fare for the return flights was 3 times the cost with US Air, which I used to come back. When I set up the itinerary in October, based on what I saw on the website, I thought "this seems like a neat company", so I joined the frequent flyer club and the $9 club, and even got their co-branded MasterCard for the extra miles and for the free continuing membership in the $9 club [after you pay the first $9 for a trial, the privilege of getting email notices of special deals is $29.95 -- now going to $39.95 -- or "complimentary" for 3 months if you take the MasterCard and then free for every card billing cycle if you use the card at least once in a cycle -- check the website for this]. I started getting $9 special fare email offers right away, and checked about possibly getting one of these deals. Every time I clicked in [you can't buy any ticket costing less than $10 over the phone -- only on line], the site indicated that all the seats were gone and I could get the same seat for $149 or $189, etc., even when I clicked in immediately after receiving the email. When I called [you generally get the Phillipines call center and the communication is spotty at best, and while generally nice, these reps are clearly undertrained, underequipped and very overworked] to inquire about getting one of these special "offers", I was told "there are a very limited number of seats offered in every deal, and you must have clicked in too late and simply found all the allocated seats already sold" so the customer is invited to pay the much higher fare to get the ticket. Right! Anyway, online, using my Spirit MasterCard,I purchased bag check vouchers a few days before departure so that not only could I access the 2 bag/person limit -- during busy periods for some destinations, passengers are restricted to only 1 bag if they show up at the check in desk without having prepurchased checked bag vouchers -- but also so I would pay only $5 for checking a bag rather than the usual "show up" bag check fee of $10, and risking getting sent home for having excessive baggage, or having to pay $50 or more for the second bag as a gross violation of temporary holiday bag limit regulations. Problem 1: when I got my credit card statement for December [after getting home in January] I found they had also charged $29.95 for the $9 club membership along with the bag check voucher charges, even though I had used the card as specified in the fine print. I called Spirit to discuss this [as is the usual practice for disputing unauthorized merchant overcharges] and they claimed this was something I had to take up with MasterCard, not them, but if I wanted to cancel my $9 club membership and stop getting the worthless [my word] bait-and-switch [also my word] $9 fare club special email "offers", I could cancel -- on line only as they would not accept my cancellation orally in the call. Right here let me say that in the many calls I have made to their 800 number, I have not had less than a 20 minute wait to speak to anyone, sometimes waiting 1 or more hours. [And also, by the way, option 4, which is "other service", i.e. "customer" service, ALWAYS rings fast-busy when you select it, meaning you cannot directly access "customer" service from the phone menu. If you press "1" for reservations and then ask the agent to connect you, they agree to do so and 1 or 2 hours later you are still on hold, without having ever reached "customer" service.] I immediately went online and canceled the useless $9 club membership, and as directed wrote a full explanation to Barclay's MasterCard. I got back a brush off letter saying basically that I had voluntarily joined the club and therefore knew I was liable for the charge and they were not going to even take up with Spirit the issue of my being charged without my authorization for something the policy states is "complimentary". When I called Barclay's MasterCard about this response, they said that part of the terms of their agreement to establish the co-branded credit card was for them not to allow disputes by customers for the $29.95 overcharge! It seems this was a scam that was already preconceived and agreed to by both Barclay's and Spirit, and not only I, but all the others who had been ripped off, had no recourse, nor would Barclay's take up with Spirit any issue of unauthorized charges or fraudulent overcharges. I take the position that unauthorized charges to my credit card, no matter by whom, is a form of fraud, and as a MasterCard customer, the least they could do is pursue the dispute with the offending merchant. They refused based on their "agreement" with Spirit that this [and other unidentified scams by Spirit]conflict between a customer and Spirit is not something they will pursue and the customer is wrong from the beginning and loses while the company is right and wins. Amazing! Problem 2: On the flight down, they "lost" one of my 7 prepaid checked bags. This sort of thing happens, right? Well, it seems they only fly the Grand Cayman routes [at that time] Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so after waiting behind about 50 other passengers with "lost" bags, I finally got up to the claim desk [operated by Cayman Air at the airport baggage claim section -- Spirit does not have a single employee in Grand Cayman] where I was told that my bag might come on the next flight and since this was Sunday [right before Christmas eve], I would surely not see the bag before Thursday at the earliest as Spirit has a policy of not using other airlines [for example those that fly every in every day] to bring in overlooked bags. P.S. when we were waiting on the tarmac at FLL, I did see several overfilled baggage trolleys that Spirit personnel just did not load. Little did I know that my bag was most likely one of those still on the tarmac when we took off. I was informed by the Cayman Air rep that after the first 24 hours without the bag, I would be entitled by the regulations to a compensation of $25 per day, and further he provided a 1-800 number for me to "check" on the status of the delivery of my bag, and further I would be lucky to get the bag by Thursday's flight because he had a 3 inch thick stack of other lost bag claims from prior flights that needed to be processed before mine would even be considered. Luckily I was staying past Thursday so if I did get the bag by then, I could use my belongings, but others, particularly families [one family of 5 ahead of me in line got none of their bags at all and were only staying to the following Saturday] would be without their personal belongings for virtually all of their trip. Spirit just left them to their own devices. I called the 1-800 Spirit lost bag number that I had been given more than 50 times between Sunday and the following Thursday and each time the recording announced: "This is Spirit Air. Due to an unusually large volume of calls, all our representatives are busy. Please call back at another time", and they terminated the call. That number never did produce a connection or a conversation. I was never able to find out when or if I was in fact going to get the bag at all so it was not clear what I should do to replace the personal items. After several days of not knowing anything, I did get the bag late Thursday after Christmas. After I got home, I filed a claim as per the instructions on the reverse side of my copy of the claim form. Just now I have received not one but two responses from Spirit. The first one says that since I did not have a "round trip" reservation, I have no standing to make any claim for lost baggage, as their policy is to honor claims from only customers who hold a "round trip", not one-way itinerary and they were outright rejecting my claim based on that. So even though they "lost" a bag on a single flight, the fact that I did not hold a return reservation, prevented me from making any kind of claim for the event that occurred on that single flight. Right! The second response said that even though I had filed my claim timely, I had not included "receipts" for personal items purchased during each of the 24 hour periods that the bag was undelivered, and consequently I would receive no reimbursement as I had not complied with regulations. It is their position that I had not complied with regs, and so any claim for improper customer treatment, inconvenience, loss of time, loss of money, etc., was just my own affair and they take no responsibility or concern at all in any of it. I am still working on this, but I just thought you readers ought to know some of the details of just one horrible experience with Spirit. Plain and simple: Spirit is not only a bunch of "crooks", which I quote, as one blogger has already said, but customer service is somewhere between non-existent and rudely dismissive -- take your pick. I might also mention that the Cayman Air rep gave me a corporate phone number for Spirit in Miramar, Fla, and when I finally reached someone to tell about my difficulties, they were horribly rude and demanded to know how I got the number and warned me in the strongest terms not to use it to try to reach anyone in the company at any future time. This is Spirit Air.

I'm glad to get the scoop on Spirit Air before joining the $9 fare club. Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I'm gonna stay away from this airline.

Maybe this blog will help you - it took a few emails, and a threat of potentially going to the federal aviation consumer report as well as to certain press avenues which I would have followed up with, and NOW I will be* (haven't gotten it yet) receiving a credit for the amount I asked for:
http://www.elliott.org/help/spirit-airlines/

Does anyone have the email to send a complain letter about the $9 dollar fare club? it is totally a scam. I haven't even been able to sign in their site once. I have read that most of the time they deny the credit, but I still want to try it. Or what is the best way anyone could suggest to handle this?

thanks!!!!! Jez

How do you sign on to the $9 fare log in site to get the special.

I have been trying customer Service for days and all I get is a busy signal. I was overcharged when I changed to an earlier flight. I was told 40.00 then I received my statement, I was charged 115.00 and I prepaid my luggage. I was charged another 20.00 one way.. The kiosk tells you to enter how many bags even if you prepaid (which I did). So I was charged again.
The plane was filthy, The anouncements were in poor English from a hispanice male and the staff was rudw..
fly jet blue...

Same here McPhee. All I get is a busy signal. Does anyone know? Just keep trying, or what?

Spirit is a sham in so many areas. I have flown them alot and there is constantly problems with bags being paid for and then the airport not having any record of the purchase and forcing one to pay again. Even have printed out a page from the website and not had it honored at the airport. Trying to change a flight online for the past 5 days and keep getting a message to call the call center. Talk about bad to worse. And the price is going up each day. Five emails and no response. And what other people have said getting through to the call center is right on. A fricking miracle to get through and then they want more money for the attention. There website is obviously run by a bunch of internet porn guys: MILF Sale! Red light special sale! And along with that porn background I beleive they bring rip-off internet website tricks.

I just wanted to say that i flew Spirit last week from Orlando to Montego Bay with a layover in Ft Lauderdale and had a wonderful experience. The staff was friendly the flights were all on time even early. It was one of the few times i have flown without mishap so maybe we are only hearing from the small per centage of people who have had a bad experience. My flights were jammed packed so Spirit must be doing something right.

Here is the direct number for Spirit Airlines Corporate Office 954-447-7965 OR 954-628-4895.

I hope this helps.

Alana

Just returned from a 4-leg round trip LA to Tampa. They messed up every single leg of this itinerary. This company is not just incompetent, they are extremely rude. We were consistently lied to, moved on and off of airplanes, and actually stranded in Detroit without warning. They tried to blame it on the weather and absolve themselves of any responsibility but ended up providing a motel room...a room-by-the-hour operation in the seediest part of Detroit. We returned to the airport and spent the rest of the night there! I have never been treated worse in my whole life. I now have $400 worth of travel vouchers (that's if I can get on their website which seems to always have it's own problems) that are useless to me as I would not think of ever doing business with Spirit Air. No fare would be cheap enough to entice me to do so. If you do book with Spirit, don't do it too far in advance because I can't imagine they will last out the year!

I had a hard time w/Spririt AIrlines no customer service line-- super busy then when you DO get thru its a million year hold. IF YOU CALL WHATEVER AIRPORT YOURE LEAVING OUT OF AND ASK FOR THE SPIRIT AIR TRAVEL DESK, THEY WILL CONNECT YOU TO THE ACTUAL TICKETING AGENTS...i GOT SOMEONE TO ANSWER MY QUESTION IS LESS THAN 1 MINUTE......... BYPASS THE SYSTEM :)

Thank you Bessie Lanza for not being very helpful to my one simple request. All I asked was that my $9 be refunded for the Club charge and refuse to do so or help me in any other way. Your excuse is always about 'the policy'

To me there is a difference between policy and customer courtesy. Instead of just doing your job and reading scripts to tell off people, maybe you should have gone out of your way a bit, like a true 'customer relations specialist', and help out with one request. A little extra effort does go a long way.

People: The way to reach a live person is by calling this number - 954-628-4896.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I was about to book a flight with Spirit on one of their great "deals" but I rather pay a little extra and avoid the headache.

I guess I must be lucky. I have flown on Spirit dozens of times going between Detroit & Fort Myers, the last was Tuesday 6/24/08. I have had only great experiences. The staff is great and most of the flight have been resonable on time. The value for what you pay is exceptional. I have been screwed so many times by Delta & NWA. Spirit is such a pleasure to deal with compared to the other airlines I find it hard to believe all of these complaints

This number works - I am speaking to Nikki now!!!

Spirit customer service rep Niurka Paulino (who can be reached at 954-447-7965 x 1711) she goes by the name "Nikki"

I just took a non stop trip to the Bahamas and Spirit Airlines lost 2 pieces of my luggage (thankfully I did recover it) On the way home ( Non-stop ) They once again lost 1 piece of luggage as did most of the passengers on the plane. But, what I thought was rather strange was the flight the day before on a non stop from Ft. Lauderdale to the Bahamas ( non stop ) NO ones luggage made it to the Bahamas. The whole entire planes luggage was lost and as far as I know has not been found as of yet.
When I made the claim of my lost luggage in Atlanta and told the ticket clerk that there where many more passengers on our flight that had lost luggage she closed her booth and went home, leaving the rest of the passengers with no one to tell. What an airline!!! I just wish Air Tran flew to the Bahamas again!!

This is the WORST airline EVER. My family and I had so many problems that I WILL NEVER FLY with them again. First of all, they have a non existent costumer service. I don't have a problem paying for the luggage but not honoring the print out from the Internet and trying to charge us twice for the luggage is too much . We had a 10 month baby with us , the employees of this F@!@# airline broke our brand new stroller , we had to carry our baby plus all the other luggage + the broken stroller around the airport... You can only imagine how fun that was!!! After 3 months of getting receipts , repair estimates and all the other crap they send us a letter saying they won't be able to compensate us for lack of information. THIS AIRLINE IS FULL OF CRAP!!!! DON'T EVER FLY WITH SPIRIT!!!!!

Well I guess I should have listened. I suffer from Parkinson's disease and usually have to pay for first class due to the fact i am unable to sit still and need the room to stretch, not to mention bothering my seat neighbor by all of my moving and twitching. Well I saw that Spirit offered basically the same seats as First Class with out the first class pricing, so I was thrilled to say the least. We booked our flight with the reserved "big front seat", myself, wife and daughter,from NY back home to Las Vegas after a two week vaction. 4 months prior mind you, and we get on the plane and guess what, our seats, 3a,c and d, were just the standard 3 across seats. No "big front seat". Flight attendant informs us that they have reconfigured most of their planes and this happens all of the time, nothing they can do, but talk to the agent in Vegas and they will refund our money. But wait, it gets better. They also booked the new row of seats now labled 3 a,b,c d,e,f to another family. My family was split throughout the entire flight. And wait still, it gets even better. The family booked into this row had a kid that was nothing short of satan himself and made him sit completley across the aisle from them next to the window, so I and my fellow passanger had to hear for 4+ f'in hours this kid screaming accross the aisle to his family. We offered to changes seats with this young man so he could be closer to his family, only for him to start screaming" I WANT THE WINDOW, I WANT THE WINDOW...and when he finally calmed down from that, he would yell to his mother and grandma, I WANT SNICKERS, I WANT SNICKERS!! After repeatedly telling him no, he started to grunt and thrash around his seat to the point that the passengers in front and behind complained, only to be told he is just a kid. Still more my friends !! His family across the row had a 1 - 1 1/2 year old baby, who thought is was fun to throw things to her brother, yep, right across our laps. Do you realize how badly a toddlers aim is ? Also worth noting that said toddler also pooped the pant's shortly after takeoff and the family decided to change her diaper when they got there. Nothing like dry heaving for 4 straight hours. All of these things would have been avoided had Spirit provided the seats that I had paid for and would have been able to sit with my family. When I did finally arrive in LV, I was informed that there was nothing they could do as I should have brought this up to the agent at the departing airport, however, I was never informed of this until AFTER I got on the plane. Agent in Vegas said, well I guess I could give you a voucher for 100 dollars. Why would I do this ? A) i will never fly them again. B) Look at he financials, this Airline will not exist in the next 12 months. Its a dead pony. All I will get is a worthless piece of paper. I am demanding a refund and seriously considering a Lawsuit. I hate to play the diability card, in fact I am embarrassed by it, but truth be told, I have never been more uncomfortable and am still suffering from cramps and muscle stiffness 24 hours later. FAA complaint is being filed at the very least. Oh, i was told to call the 800 number, and guess what, the person on the phone said there is no customer service department at Spirit Airlines !!!!! Alright enough already...you get the point.

We just booked tickets through Spirit, after having flown them once before. I was shocked to see that they now charge for selecting the seats for your flight! It cost $50 to choose our seats!!! I understand prices are going up, but I'd rather see a higher ticket price than to get these 'surprise' charges!

My main problem is with their customer service. It's HORRIBLE! I called to see why my three year old daughter needed her own email address to be a part of their rewards program. The customer service rep. said, "She's a minor and cannot participate". Interesting since she gets Worldperk points through NWA. I stated that I'm paying full adult fare for her so she should be entitled to the miles as well. The rep's response was, "As a customer you should know our rules and regulations". Um, it says NOWHERE on their webiste about age restrictions. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was put on hold for 25 minutes only to be hung up on. It took four more calls and four more hang ups before someone answered whom I THOUGHT could help. Again, she said it's the rule. I told her that nowhere on their website does it say that, and she said, "We're not connected to the website and we don't have access to it anyway". I asked to speak to a supervisor and she said there were none there. LIES!!!! I worked in a call center and believe me...there are supervisors there. I asked her for the number for the corporate office and she said there is no number. I asked how to get someone in a higher level than herself and she said, "There is no one". I replied, "You're the highest person at Spirit Airlines?" and she replied "Yes". Wow...you'd have thought I was talking to the CEO that whole time. She finally gave me the address to the corporate office, but I'm sure that even after writing a letter, I'll get the run-around, and that's if I'm lucky.

I'll be honest in that my flying experience with Spirit was great and my parents were able to fly from Detroit to Orlando for $80 roundtrip TOGETHER and they had a great experience. Pilots were great, ticketing agents were great, flight attendents were fantastic, but it's the customer service call center that is a joke. Something really needs to be done!!!

Spirit Airlines used to have a great customer services in 1999 until they hired as Director for their Customer Services Department Mr.Pasquale Nunnari, this guy has destroyed the reputation and good service of Spirit Airlines in Customer Services.
Mr. Nunnari fired over the time more than 300 employees. At the time the situation was brought to the attention of the president of the company Jacob Schorr but nothing was done. Spirit Airlines was sold and their Customer Services Operation was outsourced.
Mr. Pasquale Nunnari was promoted as Customer Services Vice-President and right now is almost impossible to get a good service in their customer services department.
Some people answer to you in India with the voice of "Ahmed the death terrorist" and when they are not able to get into a normal conversation with you or solve your problem they hang on you. So good luck to those who fly spirit airlines and thanks God it didn't happen again but one of their planes landed with an engine in fire in FLL.
See in the blog:http://propilotnews.com/2007/07/spirit-airlines-pilots-claim-contract.html
they wrote:
Pilots at Spirit Airlines are angry. They claim that the airline's management is forcing pilots to work longer hours on international routes in violation of contractual limits. Worse yet, the pilots are not being appropriately compensated.

The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), the union representing the pilots, explains the situation for pilots at Spirit Airlines:

Spirit pilots stepped up to help the company with a concessionary contract in 2003 that was designed to allow Spirit to survive and grow. At that time the Company demanded that Caribbean and Latin American flying be treated as domestic flying, thereby allowing the company to avoid paying international overrides to pilots performing such assignments. To protect pilots from fatigue and enhance the safety of Spirit operations, the union insisted that in agreeing with the demands, the company had to follow domestic hours of service rules, which are more restrictive than international hours of service rules. This system has worked for more than three years.
So another accident in Spirit Airlines is very possible.

I will NEVER book through spirit airlines again and I wouldn't recommend them to my worst enemy.
I was mislead as to the total cost to fly. I asked 3 times what the bottom line was before they took my credit card. Once the credit card went through, the woman on the phone told me my bags and seats would be extra.
I reminded her that I asked several times what was the bottom line for the flight, are there hidden charges.
Her response AFTER spirit took my money was that she forgot.
I asked her to cancel the flight, she said my tickets were non-refundable and she was not resposible for giving me mis information.
I asked to talk to a supervisor. Peolpe don't even bother to try to get on of them on the phone because even when you do (after you get hung up on a half a dozen times) they WON'T help you either.
Then there was the issue of them adding my 10 month old as a lap rider. I was told that they could not send me any reciept that she was added. I asked for one my mail or email and was told they could not waste thier time. The woman said " I told you she is added, stop being such a b-tch and let me do my job." then she hung up. This was in March. It was confirmed in August that she was NEVER added. When I asked what would have happened if I had not confirmed her name on the reservation, I was told they would have denied my 10 month old boarding.
They have also changed the times for my flight 4 TIMES since it was booked in Feb.. It has been changed 3 times out of the 4 in the past week and a half. Every day I am getting notices in my email box. One time it was for only half my party and the email said we were booked on a 1:25pm flight that did not exist.
When I called spirit they said just disregaurd the email. The next day they chaged the flight again. Only they put my 2 year old on a different flight by herself.
These people are crazy. I'm hoping they don't screw up our home flight while were at Disney.
Do yourself a favor. DO NOT BOOK ON SPIRIT AIRLINES!!!!!!!

P.S to Alison Russell:
You don't want to respond to internet blogs...I got news for you..You don't respond to compaints even when they are called in to you phone center or when you are written letters.
I would refuse a 100.00 credit voucher making me fly you awful airline too.
Your customer service is the worst I have EVER incountered.
Are you a liar or just plain stupid or ignorant to the company you represent.

Just following up to my comments left on July 20, 2008. After many, many attempts to contact someone at Spirit, Nikki was called 7 times BTW and no response at all, I filed a fraud claim with my Credit Card company and was refunded my entire amount. Way to go Spirit ! What a shame.......Maybe they will give VISA the courtesy of a response.

I sued Spirit for not giving me two round trip vouchers that they promised after being taken off an overbooked flight involuntarily...AND WON!!! Call 954-628-4839...it is their legal department. Good Luck!

Spirit Airlines called me at 1:30 a.m. to inform me that my 7:30 a.m. flight was cancelled. They called back again at 4:30 a.m. and told me the flight was on again. I got up and rushed to the airport. At the boarding gate we were informed the flight would be late by 30 mins, then an hour, then two hours. I couldnt connect to to the next flight so I asked for a refund. The two agents had no idea how to do it, or arrange flights for other passengers, or do anything at all for that matter. So we all stood around for an hour waiting for an agent to arrive that could. None of the agents seemed like they even cared that the flight was delayed. When the knowlegable agent arrived, he said he didnt think the flight was going to leave at all, because they were still looking for a flight crew to man the aircraft! Finally got my refund and its the first and last time I will ever use Spirit Airlines. Wish I had read the popular blogs first!