BEWARE Spirit Air website - ripped me off!!!

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

trigfunctions

Contributor
Messages
974
Reaction score
39
Location
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
# of dives
100 - 199
Hi all - I wanted to post about my recent TERRIBLE experience with Spirit airlines. I'm posting here because so many of us live in South Florida and may consider using Spirit. I have flown Spirit often and usually have good luck, but this time their website has ripped me off significantly. When I called their customer service number I was told that they would not correct the problem. I am posting here and sending this to Spirit also. I will be contacting my credit card company as well. I will also post whatever additional response I get from Spirit, if any. To make a long story short, DON'T TRUST THE SPIRIT WEBSITE!!! :no:

Last year I took a round trip flight from Fort Lauderdale to Chicago. The return flight was overbooked, and I voluntarily got bumped in exchange for a voucher good for a round trip ticket.

I used the voucher to book another round trip ticket from Fort Lauderdale to Chicago. The voucher covered the cost of the ticket ($180.26) and I had to pay $50.92 in taxes and fees. My travel plans changed, so I went on the Spirit website to see if I could change the ticket. I understood that I would have to pay a $100 change fee, but I figured I would still come out $80.26 ahead. I explored several options and saw that the Spirit website would let me change the ticket to a completely different itinerary, so I used the website to change the ticket into a round trip ticket from Fort Lauderdale to Cancun.

The website showed that the price of the Cancun flight plus taxes and fees was $123.17. Adding the $100 change fee made the price $223.17. I entered my credit card number and the website showed the total price of the flight ($223.17) showed the subtraction for the voucher ($180.26), showed a SUBTRACTION of $71.48 for some reason, and showed that NOTHING was being charged to my card and no balance was due. Sounds great - an even swap for the ticket and I'm happy. My girlfriend then went online and bought the exact same ticket for $123.17 total.

When the confirmation e-mail came, it was very different than what the screen showed. This is an exact cut-and-paste from my confirmation e-mail:
-----------------------------------
Fare + FET: 71.48
Travel Taxes and Fees: 123.17
Other Fees: 100.00
------------------
Total Fare Price: 294.65

Voucher : -180.26
Visa : -223.17
Voucher Adjustment : 108.78
------------------
Balance Due: 0.00
FET = 7.5% Federal Excise Tax
-------------------------------------
WHOA! Very different than what was on the website. There is NO WAY I would have accepted this charge if it had shown that on the website. To make things stranger, when I checked my credit card statement on line the next day, it showed I was charged $172.25 for the ticket, not $223.17. Something is amiss.

I called customer service and after 45 minutes of getting the runaround, I was told that you can't use a voucher on-line and that they would not correct the problem or change anything in any way. Therefore, I have paid $172.25 plus the original $50.92 I paid in taxes ($223.17 total) for a ticket priced at $123.17 AND I have lost the original round trip ticket voucher. Talk about getting screwed! And remember, I got the voucher when I volunteered to get bumped on an overbooked flight so that Spirit could give someone else my seat and most likely make more money on that flight. This is how they treat good, repeat customers who do them a FAVOR?!

I am outraged. I think I should get my money back on my credit card AND some kind of compensation from Spirit for having to spend hours (yes, it really does take hours to deal with their customer service staff) trying to correct their mistakes. I will post whatever response I get from Spirit, but most of us know how awful their customer service system is. If anyone has any ideas for how to help me resolve this, please let me know. And most of all, DON'T TRUST THE SPIRIT WEBSITE!!!
 
Damn, and just after I priced out good flights to St. Thomas en route to St. Croix (didn't buy yet, waiting on dates). If I fly Spirit I can fly FLL; American is out of MIA. Damn. Good luck getting your refund.
 
Agreed that Spirit sucks. When we went to SXM in June we almost went with them thankfully we didn't as they went on strike and screwed all their passengers with no help getting them onto other airlines. We were also coming through FLL on Spirit where we bumped into a guy that flew out of TX to one of the Caribbean islands on a round trip. He used Spirit to go from TX to FLL to his destination just fine. On his way back he was trying to pick up his connecting Spirit flight from FLL to TX only to discover they no longer went to his TX destination and cancelled the route during his vacation. They never sent notice and would not help him with a connecting flight on another airline even though he had already paid Spirit for the full fare. It was ridiculous. Yet another time at FLL their computers went down and all hell broke loose as they simply couldn't process any passengers. To make matters worse the agents were very rude and Spirit later refused to give refunds. We eventually got our refund but it was an uphill fight.

We will never fly them again. Besides after luggage and carry on fees they end up being the same price as AirTran usually. When going with a checked bag we almost always use Delta.
 
Hmmmm, American out of MIA nonstop for $50 more is looking better...I just hate flying out of MIA.
 
This is the same company that charges $25 for a carry-on, right?
 
Hmmmm, American out of MIA nonstop for $50 more is looking better...I just hate flying out of MIA.

I still HATE flying out of MIA but it's not as bad as it used to be, say five years ago. Either that or my Spanish has gotten better..... American's jets are really old though.

This is the same company that charges $25 for a carry-on, right?

Yep, Spirit is always the first to introduce new ways to chisel your wallet.
 
I need to find the easiest/cheapest way to fly to/from STX. American non-stop, or Spirit to STT/island hopper to STX, seem to be the least expensive. Any other thoughts?
 
Thanks for the replies everybody. Here's their response so far:
Thank you for taking the time to contact Spirit Airlines. The satisfaction of our customers is our top priority. This is a computer generated response confirming your email correspondence with us. We will get back to you as soon as possible and appreciate your patience. Sincerely, Spirit Airlines Corporate Customer Relations
 
In other words, total BS.

Finding out that they charge for a carry-on makes them just as expensive as the non-stop AA flight from MIA.

Good luck!!!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/
https://xf2.scubaboard.com/community/forums/cave-diving.45/

Back
Top Bottom