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!

I have been a $9 fare club member and had nothing but good experiences all along....
All of a sudden for the past 2 months I've not been able to open e-mails from them. I call ther Fla. offices and get invitations for voice mail and sometimes mail boxes are full. They do not respond to e-mails either. Have they all left the planet? Can anyone help me????

My wife and I booked round-trip flights on Spirit Air in mid-May for travel in August from San Jose Costa Rica to Ft. Lauderdale with wife leaving two weeks before me and us returning together. Her flight out went fine albiet a 1 hour delay. Our connecting flight on Southwest Air was five hours later (purposely) so delay did not disrupt connection. One week after her departure someone here in Costa Rica was looking for an adult to accompany their daughter (who had flown alone domestically, but Spirit policy mandated she have an adult with her for International flight) so I queried web site to see if another seat was available on my flight now one week away. No seats available. I'm thinking "good for Spirit the flight was fully booked" The DAY before my flight actually about 28 hours or so I was sent an e-mail stating my flight had been cancelled due to technical reasons and they had changed their schedule for return flight as well!
So I fly out one day later than planned and had to change reservation with connecting flight on Southwest on short notice and pay a $177 penalty.
I have a strong suspicion they knew a week in advance my flight was cancelled but waited until it was too late to book with another carrier to inform me.
Later,while aboard the plane we have to wait an hour or so on the ground for a co-pilot to show up. The excuse was the co-pilot wad been late on his flight in the day or night before and FAA (scapegoat) was strict in that crew had to have certain amount of time between flights.
On return flight, since scedule had been changed to a different time making it impossible for us to make our connection in Ft. Lauderdale, instead of paying $177 each to Southwest we change our plans and fly Spirit a day earlier and pony up for hotel and overnight in Ft. Lauderdale...$124 more expense which added $301 ($177 plus $124) to our travel plans. Adding that to original price we could have flown Delta,Continental, or U.S. Air for about same expense with a much shorter travel time and my NOT losing two days and my wife one day we had planned to spend with family.
Also the Spirit employees did not seem too happy and one Flight Attendant was especially irratable, short and rude but that is most likely due to bad and or inept management which can destroy morale.
I don't think I'll be flying Spirit again!

I just recived a mail from Spirit airlines confirming a ticket i have never orded, In fact I have never herd of the company before. Here is part of their mesage:
"Dear Gentlemen,
Thank you for using our new service "Buy flight ticket Online" on our website.
Your account has been created:
" "Your credit card has been charged for $695.95."
I consider this an action of fraud, and I am going to bring it to court

I purchased a Free Spirit Mastercard. You are to receive a complimentary membership in the $9 club. I never received the membership. I called Spirit Airlines, no help. I called the card company, no help. Spirit has no custermer service, no one to help you. They tell you to write to Spirit headquarters, which I did three times. No repsonse. We should sue for false advertisement. Do not purchase the card and don't expect any service from Spirit airlines. It is a joke.

My wife and I just returned from our second $9 fare. Total with tax was $78 for 2 fares. NOT BAD!....The only grip I have is the nasty flight attendant.....HORRIBLE!.....But if I can fly 2 from detroit to Las Vegas for under a $100 I will put up with nasty people that hate their job for 3 1/2 hrs!!!!

If everyone tells 10 people not to fly Spirit Air, until they set up a customer relations phone number to take calls and answer questions, This would hurt their flights. As for me where is my $9.00 fare email deals? you promised ? Spirit Air took my money last month!I have not heard from them?
Robert

I would like to try my hardest in finding the perpetrator who stole my deceased mother's jewelery out of my checked luggage at Orlando International Airport with Spirit Airlines. I have already filed a police report and received the run-around at the airport. Spirit fails to get in contact with me after four weeks and counting. I feel that TSA and/or Spirit has alot to do with ALL of the jewlery missing out of my luggage. I have a lawyer and am in the process of filing charges against TSA and Spirit Airlines. I feel something needs to be done fast and my story will be in the news. I am NOT a customer that will be quiet and go away and accept their apology! TSA and/or a Spirit Airlines employe continues to get away, well not while I am around! The jewlery is extremely sentimental to my family and I. The theif(s) that put his/her hands in my luggage and stole ALL of the jewlery will be caught! This could happen to many others, and I am trying everything to prevent an event like this from happening again!

Rather than post another complaint about what may be the worst airline in the history of aviation, I'll just provide the good users of this site with links to the Federal Trade Commission's complaint department and the Better Business Bureau where Spirit is headquartered. Please use this information. If the FTC gets enough complaints, they WILL take legal action.

FTC:
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

Better Business Bureau:
https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx

Every year Spirit Airlines attempts to charge me $39.95 for "services and merchandise". I have go go the gamut with my credit card company to get it removed.

Here is a message to Spirit Airlines: I am publicly accusing you of FRAUD.

Never would I recommend to anyone the use of your airline.

I hope you go under and end up living in a shack on skid row.

THIEVES!

I called the legal department number referenced in a previous message on this blog. They answered hello. I had to ask if it was the legal department to which they responded yes. I then suggested it is proper to say so when responding to a call. After much run-around. ..... voice-mail, a complete disconnect etc. a woman named Nikki finally responded by saying that the charge was for a $9 Club. Perhaps you are familiar with this club. I am not.
I told her it was a flat-out lie to say I signed-up for it and that if she could provide any documentation to that effect I would give her $1000. She avoided responding. She was the first person I had spoken to and she handed off the call three times to no avail.

Finally she apologized for the error and credited me my money and took me off the club roster .... whatever that is.

My recommendation?
NEVER FLY SPIRIT AIRLINES. THEY ARE IN IN FOR THE QUICK KILL AND THEN THEY ARE GONE WITH YOUR MONEY. SOUND FAMILIAR?

BEWARE Fraudulent Inducement: Now that I have dealt with SpiritAir, I clearly understand the meaning of the legal concept, "fraudulent inducement." After spending hours comparing and analyzing airline fares and schedules, I finally decided to book with SpiritAir, since its represented fare was the lowest--even though its schedule was more inconvenient and required more travel time than other airlines. AFTER going through the online process of booking the flight, and AFTER SpiritAir charged my American Express, I was THEN told by the online process that I would have to pay significant extra fees to bring luggage. Grumbling through this announcement on my way to the final "confirmation" page--the last page of the online procedure--I was then confronted with what would have been a dealbreaker--had I been told up front: Not only did I have to pay extra to bring luggage, I had to PAY EXTRA--A LOT EXTRA--TO BE SURE I WOULD BE ABLE TO SIT WITH MY CHILD. I was so outraged at the fact that this EXTRA COST TO RESERVE SEATING WAS NOT DISCLOSED UP FRONT (AT LEAST NOT IN ANY WAY THAT WAS OBVIOUS), and the apparent deception that seems to have been deliberately integrated into the way SpiritAir's online purchasing process was set up, I decided I never wanted to do business with SpiritAir again. Since I had not gotten all the way to the "confirmation" last step of the online process, I thought that perhaps undoing this nightmare might be possible. I managed to find a phone number (no small feat) to contact SpiritAir--only to be told by both the initial clerk, and then his supervisor, that my credit card had already been charged for the flight, and if I did not want to pay to save a seat on the plane, I could just wait until the date of my flight (over 6 weeks away) and hope that their might be seats together at that point. There would be no refund on my credit card--only a credit for future Spirit Airline travel. Further, there was no one else to talk with, and if I wanted to talk to the President (which I requested), I could write to him at 2800 Executive Way, Miramar, FL 33025. Apparently, he was not taking phone calls or emails, and lest I take the time to write, there was no vehicle for appealing or addressing the moral outrage I felt over this injustice. The fact that, due to this seemingly deliberate deception and entrapment, I never want to do business again with SpiritAir, had no effect on Spirit's unyielding policy. I would think that, principles of fairness hopefully incorporated into Florida's fraudulent inducement law (and any "bait and switch" type affiliated laws) would be implicated by SpiritAir's seemingly deliberate failure to disclose pertinent facts on the front end of an air flight purchase transaction. Who would have ever thought that, in addition to paying the stated price for the flight, you would also have to pay extra for a seat? In my opinion, SpiritAir had a duty to disclose this fact prior to taking (and refusing to give back) my money already paid for the "flight," and its failure to disclose that "seats" were not included in its advertised "flight" price is tantamount to fraud. Might this be class action material?

So, My dad and my mom BOTH have a free spirit mastercard they they both got in 2006 when we flew sprit for the very first time from FTL to LGA. My dad has over 46,000 miles and my mom...WELL, WE DON'T KNOW! Last thursday we last about 5 hours on the phone, was hung up on about 7 times and still the problem exists. The spirit airlines people can't find affiliation between my mother and her free spirit #, even though it's on the freaking card with her name on it. They kept sending me to the credit card company and visa versa. MERRY-GO-ROUND OF HELL, I call it. Solution...wait, what solution?? Solution would mean a certain case was solved as in, taken care of, case closed. Yea...not the case. Don't know what else to do.

Another story... :) I was trying to book 3 award tickets through their website and it says they're trying to make a better website in 2008 or something like that. I imagine this was put on their website in 2007 and it's now 2009. So, I fill this application out to request the tickets and wait 7 days. I get an email telling me to go online so I can purchase the tickets through their website. Now, I think I follow directions pretty well, but when i get to the area where I should book the travel, it shows the SAME application to redeem miles, AGAIN, MERRY-GO-ROUND OF HELL! So, I call their reservation line and basically was told that there was nobody that could help me with award travel. I asked to speak to a supervisor and I was amazed at how RUDE the betch was. She WOULD NOT pass me through to her supervisor even if her LIFE depended on it! THEN, of course...I was hung up on. The saying is true..."you get what you pay for" I'm convinced of it now, after dealing with this company. People, I think we all know the economy is in a jam right now, but it's a dog eat dog world and this company is the perfect example. I would rather pay more money knowing that I'm going to be taken care of, rather than be left in the dark when I'm puttin in all the work to get something solved.

Spirit is a total joke, though a cheap joke. You can only speak with non-English speaking people who REFUSE to give you a supervisor no matter how much you beg. They know nothing and will not get you to anyone who does. Their $8 fair club is a total fraud sold as free for 1 year when it is not.
The bottom line is that I am done with them. I would rather pay a bit more and deal with a real airline.

I used Spirit to save $100.00 but if this means agravating my ulcer, I will happily pay $200.00 more and fly with professional people and a real airline!

They suck. Ive tried them 3 times and every single time they screw up and the sad part is they dont care. Why is it if we screw up its non refundable but if they screw up its tough luck.
President Obama should not help them out and just let them go bankrupt or hang them all.

Just got off the phone with Spirit reservations in India. Volunteered to be bumped from a Spirit flight (overbooked) in April given 2 vouchers foe a free flight anywhere Spirit flies valid for a year.

Sorry I was told there are restrictions on these vouchers you cannot use them for the dates you request. When asked why I was told no reason could be give only "certain restrictions". When asked which days were blocked, could not give an answer only certain restrictions.

Nowhere are their restriction on the voucher nor were any specified when they were offered.

This is not my first encounter with the scummy unethical business practices of this crummy excuse of an airline. They lie, cheat and screw their customers with seeming impunity.

Why doesn't the DOT close them down or fine them an amount that will make them understand their ethics are unacceptable. Boycott them as this is the only was to get them out of the continual scamming of customers.