Caution-Spirit Airlines
 

I booked a flight from Orlando to Punta Cana on Spirit in 9/06 for a flight 3/07. In February, Spirit changed my return date from 3/14 to 3/15. When I called, they said they could give me a full refund. When I couldn't find a better flight in such a short notice, I make arrangements and stayed a day longer which cost much more money than planned. When we arrived at the airport for our flight, we had a flight from Orlando to Ft Lauderdale, but no flight to Punta Cana. Spirit insists they have sent me notice, but they never did. Why would they leave me on one leg of my trip and not cancel or change the whole flight. They did put us on a flight 2 days later and gave us a room for 2 nights, but no food vouchers. Letters to customer service resulted in, "I'm sorry, we have the right to change our schedule". A letter to their CEO has not even been answered. I would NEVER fly this airline again, you will not know when you will go or come back!!!!!

That's impressively not competent. Seems to me the baseline for an airline is a established time/place/flight. Otherwise it's sort of "Gods Must Be Crazy" random.

I think I would like to hear both sides of this story before condemning the airline. It sounds as if you initially told them you did not want the amended flight, then, after checking around and not finding a better deal, you decided you would take the offered flight, but it isn't clear that you communicated your changed decision to them. In such a case, they would certainly cancel the leg you told them you didn't want.

I think you could buttress your case by showing you paid the full fare before leaving; if you were charged less and paid more at the gate for the missing leg, that would seem to support the idea that you had led them to think the leg was cancelled.

They had informed me of the change on the return flight to the following day, but not about the day leaving. They said they redid their schedules. I believe they had a glitch in their system that never took that leg of my trip out of their system. We were supposed to leave on 3/6. They changed my flight to 3/8 when we were at the airport. Then they sent me an email of the itinery. The itinerary still had the flight to Punta Cana on it from 3/6 as well as 3/8. They insist they notified me of the cancellation, but can't show me the emails they say they sent and that is because they NEVER sent any. So they changed both the day we were scheduled to leave AND the day we were scheduled to return. How can you PLAN a vacation like that when you don't know when you will arrive or depart? It just is not right!!!

I just flew Spirit to and from FLL from DC National. I was actually quite impressed. The planes are new, the flight attends were fairly friendly and everything ran on time. I'd use them again.

I flew them too and that's how I think they operate. If the flight is full, you're good to go. If there are problems selling tickets, they will cancel without thinking twice even if there are few sits already sold. I actually had to change my itinerary from Cancun to Atlantic city since they would not refund me be3cause of the flight change. Even worse, after the recent hurricane in Cancun I refused to fly because hotels were closed down - they would not refund me either, just waived the change fee. Definitely won't fly this crappy airline!