How to come home from a week in the Caribbean aching with exhaustion, furious to the point of having a stroke, and for the first time in your life, wanting to cuddle up with a lawyer, courtesy of Spirit Airlines.
We booked a week in the Bahamas months ago. In January, booked flights on Spirit to fly Saturday, June 9 and return Saturday, June 16. On Friday night, June 8, I went on Spirit to... print boarding passes. Imagine my chagrin, our flight did not exist! No such flight number. I put in our names and found we were booked on Sunday, June 10 and on a return flight Sunday, June 17. We had arranged rides to airport, etc. All down the toilet. Spirit, hides their phone number well on their website. Took me a while to find it. Called and got recording saying, "wait time is approximately 45 minutes." It was all of that, listening to a loop of a commercial asking us to apply for a Spirit Credit Card. Finally a polite man that I suspect was in India, told me yes, the flight was canceled, and they had tried to contact us. A total lie. The only thing he could offer us was to cancel our flight and refund our money. If we did that, we would have lost what we paid for the week at our resort. So, we re-grouped and re-planned.
Had to pay for over-seas call to resort. Our unit we paid for will be empty Saturday night. Told , no problem staying over next Saturday night, you will just have to pay $231.
If you haven't flown Spirit lately, check it out. To check 2 suitcases, which were UNDER their weight limit round trip was $152. You get one bag that will fit under your seat. Need to put something in the overhead bin? That will be $30. And your seat, want an aisle, want a window? Want to SIT TOGETHER? That will be $5-15. If you don't pay this, trust me, they will make SURE you don't sit together. But we got there on Sunday. Nice week, in spite of Spirit.
On Sunday, we dutifully arrived at 11:30 AM, 3 hours before our 2:30 departure. Checked in with Spirit. Very nice young man. Went through grueling customs line, finally made it to our gate. Went to check the board to see if our flight was on time. Yay! It is! Then we blinked. The "On Time" changed to "Canceled." Canceled! We were already a day late, had paid an extra night due to their outrageous conduct and now we are in the Nassau Airport with no flight home? Spirit employees nowhere to be found. When finally they showed up, I felt sorry for them. They were very nice, and trying very hard in near-riot conditions. We were fortunate flyers, we live in Fort Lauderdale, we did not miss a connecting flight home, we had no small kids. Others were pitiable. Elderly people, people with small kids. This was a 10 hour ordeal. When we saw Spirit, employees, we were leaving at 4, 5, 6 on JetBlue, BahamaAir, American Airlines. We were being flown to Miami and bussed to Ft. Lauderdale. Total chaos. They rightfully got the people who had missed their connecting flights out first. At about 8:10, 14 of us boarded a very old prop plane and were flown to Ft. Lauderdale. We got home at 9:30. Since we missed our ride home, $35 cab fare.
And Spirit, compensates us how? The really nice employees in Nassau, and they really are, in fact I hope they are applying for jobs with better airlines, (better airline= ANY other airline) gave us a $7 voucher for a meal at Wendy's, Quizno's, or Dunkin' Donuts. And....a $50 discount on our next Spirit flight before August 17. Hmmm...what shall we do with this.....can you spell CHARMIN?
I have contacted Spirit customer service. Another person who has my pity. An articulate and polite young man, Emmanuael, who can do nothing but apologize. We will not be compensated in any way. Yes, we bought the trip insurance, Travel Guard, but they are in cahoots with Spirit. Was told today that we may not be reimbursed because we don't' have a NAMED REASON why Spirit, canceled our original flight home on the 16th. Spirit calls that a reschedule rather than a cancellation. All we asked for is reimbursement for the $231 room fee. Others on the flight were going to ask for full reimbursement for the flight but we will not because, nightmare or not, we actually made it home.
Obviously we will never fly Spirit again. We lost money and had a miserable 10 hour ordeal. Please advise your friends, take Greyhound, take Amtrak. This is the worst customer service I have ever seen and I live in an area of terrible customer service. Finally, I am curious where they came up with the name Spirit. What Spirit? Leona Helmsley?See More
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