Beware new Spirit Air policy on fare changes

[bjakmom]

Since SW opened up today for our october trip and I was able to book for everyone going through Philly, I decided to also book the few legs I needed with Spirit through AC.

Tonight I was double checking all my reservations (booking for 10 people total ) and noticed that all the Spirit fares had gone down $10 each way. I tried to get the credit voucher on-line for the difference as I've been able to do on all my recent trips and it kept coming up with a "$40.00 per person change fee will be charged to your credit card". So I called Spirit and was informed that as of the end of April they had changed their policy on being able to book and then get the lower fares when offered - sure enough, they will now charge $40. pp for any change !!!! I asked her how they're going to continue competing with SW with those kinds of customer un-friendly policies!!! Hope we continue having good service from SW because that's who we'll be flying from now on!

 

[bicker]

It seems to me that any airline that actually wants to compete against Southwest has to adopt all of Southwest's non-traditional practices, including not releasing flight availability until several months prior to the flight. Otherwise, they're subject to a lot of extra cost and disruption of their inventory, with folks using their flights as a "just in case" reservation until Southwest decides to release its availability.

 

[Brian Noble]

I guess I'm just unluckly, but SWA's price for my DTW->MCO weekend was $350 PER PERSON, compared to Spirit's $216. And, that was checking yesterday within hours after the late September SWA calendar opened up.

So, at least for me, there is no competition.

 

[bicker]

Good point: Even with a couple of $40 change fees, you're still coming out ahead with Spirit.

 

[Lewisc]

Some companies may compete in other areas including price.

SW is unique in many of their business practices. They don't charge a change fee but won't let you stand by without paying to upgrade your ticket to full fare. They wait to release their schedule but once its released they rarely make any changes. They let you benefit when the fare is reduced without any charges. Think about it if the fare goes up SW isn't allowed to bill you the increase. There really isn't any logical reason why any airline has to give us any credit when the fare is reduced. SW happens to be the most generous. We all know SW doesn't offer meals, movies or assigned seats.

You have to decide what's most important to you when you pick your flights.

From your standpoint it doesn't matter but AC and PHL don't have the same cost structure and you wouldn't necessarily expect to see the exact same fares.

 

[wdwstar]

that is to bad during christmas we exstended our stay twice, the first exstended the fare was the same that we paid , we only had to pay $25 a person, then the day before we were to fly, chgo got hit with a bad snow storm and all flights were canceled, now the day we were to fly we new it would be all backed up and there only 2 flights back per day. we didnt feel like wasting a whole day at the airport just to get bumped. i call spirit the night before and gave up our seats to fly home a few days later, after being put on hold several times finally spirit agree to change our tickets without charging us as long as we didnt exspect any free vouchers for being bumped.
at that point we didnt care about the free vouchers as long as we got to stay and didnt have to be charged for a change fee. when we got to the airport we upgraded to first class and it was the best $40 we paid , we were the only ones in first class and was treated like royality.

 

[jetsetter90]

Song has been charging the fee since I think January so I think Spirit is keeping up with the other airlines.

TTFN
Jetsetter90

 

[manning]

Too bad the airlines can't be fair and pay us a change fee everytime they change our flights.

 

[bicker]

Gosh, I'd hate that -- just think of how much more airfares would have to BE to provide enough revenue to support paying us a change fee every time they change flight schedules!

 

[Lewisc]

Too bad the airlines can't be fair and pay us a change fee everytime they change our flights.

I'd think fair would be if the airlines were allowed to bill you any increase in fare, discounted by the same change fee they charge when they're crediting you for fare reductions.

Actually schedule changes can work in your favor. Most airlines will allow you to change your reservation to any flight that day or even another day. They'll allow that for no charge even if your new flight is more expensive and never had deeply discounted fares availabile.

 

[bjakmom]

I am not Spirit bashing - I have been flying them several times a year for many years , but it is rarely an advantage to us when the airlines change our flight times - we just had to return today instead of tomorrow from our anniversary trip to Myrtle Beach because Spirit changed the flight time from noon to 6 PM - that's a huge difference and we needed to be home tomorrow in the afternoon. We had our hotel booked for the extra night, event plans made, great car rental rate, kids looked after, etc. Now they did manage to fly us home the day early and even mentioned that they weren't going to charge us a 'fee' for doing so !!! - why should I think they are doing me a favor by not charging me the 'going' rate (if it is now higher than when I booked) when I have to reschedule my flight because of their changes!!?? I have made the adjustment several times when they changed my flights by a few hours - but 6 hours??!!

My frustration about the lower fares (and I see they have gone down even further while I was away ) is that they are obviously offering a certain # of these reduced fares to their customers - as someone who has booked early and commited to flying with them, I feel that I should be given the opportunity to take the lower fare and hold my credit toward a future flight (as they have been doing) - that way anyone not booking early or putting in the time to watch fares could pay the higher price once all of the lower fares available were booked.

I don't understand how this could allow people to book 'just in case' as I certainly believe that cancelling flights to fly with another airline is a completely different scenario than being allowed to take advantage of them lowering the rates on a flight you have already booked.

Another thing to note is that it clearly stated that the $40.00 fee change will be "charged to your credit card" and then the $$ saved will be credited as a voucher for future travel - they are not even just deducting the $40.00 from your voucher amount !