Spirit Air Reviews

When we get to the airport and speak with Alla and Jacqueline, who were pleasant. At first we get the same story, not much we can do. I look on my phone and find flights for $474 (total for two +25 for baggage) with Alaska Airlines that will get us to San Diego on time to make our connection on Spirit. Alla offers to refund the leg of our trip that is in question (PDX to SAN). She informs us that will be a $415.92 refund. GREAT! After confirming with her that it is safe to do so, I purchase the Alaska flight on my phone (of course it is non-refundable) and Alla informs me she is processing our refund for $415.92.

Then she goes to get a manager, Mark, for help. We think nothing of it. Mark comes back and informs us that Alla had mistakenly cancelled the entire first half of our trip (PDX to SAN to Cabo), and that we will have to rebook the San Diego to Cabo leg and pay $263.96. WHAT?!? The only reason we booked another flight (non-refundable) with Alaska Airlines for $474 is because we were told that we would be getting $415.92 refund from Spirit. Well, she was wrong. We're told by Mark that there is nothing he can do and that it was our choice to book another flight and pay for it. We were forced to pay $263.96 for the leg of our trip that should not have been cancelled. Mark told us if we wanted to get a flight from San Diego to Cabo, that we would have to pay for it, that he couldn't just give it to us. That should tell you enough, so no need to go into the other experiences we had for the rest of the trip (additional delays with wildly fluctuating timelines, attempts to double charge for baggage, broken planes, etc). This was our first experience with Spirit.and it was awful.

He finally agreed to let me talk to a manager - once again stating that they aren't going to help me. I was on hold - on hold - on hold - he comes back and says, "Can you hold on for one more minute?" I say yes--because I had one more minute (I was working and didn't have all day to hold). 20 minutes later a supervisor gets on the phone. Once again--broken English-- and RUDE...RUDE...RUDE. She tried to make ME feel stupid. She tried to make ME feel like I didn't know English. Rudely spelling out words that I could not understand. Where the heck is the customer service?

I stated it was my first time flying with spirit and I just barely caught the error. If I caught the error on the day I booked I would've switched it in a heartbeat. She stated that it was my fault and now I have to pay for my error. I agree - I made a mistake - BUT you're going to charge your new customer a $250 fee for making a mistake and trying to correct it in less than a week? I paid $200 total for the flights. I could barely understand her broken English with her arguing, talking over me, raising her voice, and speaking so fast that I had no idea what she was saying. Where is the customer service here?

I can't believe you allow your "supervisor" to talk to "customers" in this manner. I was hesitant to book with Spirit in the first place because of the TERRIBLE customer service reviews - I thought I would give it a chance confident that I wouldn't have to deal with customer service. I was WRONG. Your customer service was rude - and NO help at all. I am absolutely sick to my stomach about this. Another dissatisfied customer that will never book a spirit flight again.

I understand the fees to and extent - but customers ALWAYS come first and you shouldn't punish them to the point where it's not even worth it to fly with you. Also I feel like this fee should be waived JUST BECAUSE YOUR REPRESENTATIVES WERE SO RUDE TO ME. $250 to switch a flight for two people.....plus the $100 dollar baggage fees....CRAZY, DON'T BOOK. DON'T BOOK. DON'T BOOK.

I then asked if she could please check another airline for a flight for me. Again, my options were given to me as well as a "We don't do that". I checked for flights on my cell phone and saw United had one, and was able to get me home that night. It did cost me an extra $500 though. Moral of the story: Everyone at Spirit needs to take remedial classes in customer service, because at this rate, they will be out of business soon. In the future, I will pay a little more and fly with SOUTHWEST Airlines. Never had an issue with them.

I proceeded to ask the girl at the counter when then was the next flight leaving for the US and was told (on Thursday) that it would be 2:30pm on Monday!! Furious, I had to walk away. There was no getting on that flight and I was starving anyway. I went, ate, and decided that I would take the Monday flight though it meant missing two more days of work. Granted, my original flight was still not due to depart yet, when I approached the desk to purchase the Monday flight ticket, there was nobody there!! They had gone home for the weekend after closing their last flight!

Unbelieving this fact, I asked a nearby airport security officer, and he confirmed, they had left about 15-20 minutes ago! They left as soon as I did! I did fly home the next day with United Airlines for $424.00, but don't bother trying to get a refund from Spirit for the return flight or extra ticket expense. They don't exist! This company needs to be shut down for the treatment of their customers. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND AVOID FUNDING THEIR FOLLY! THEY TRULY ARE CRIMINAL IN THEIR DAY TO DAY DEALINGS!

If I could do it all over again, I would never fly this airline again and would highly recommend others, please do some simple fact finding before booking a ticket on Spirit. BBB has over 2800+ complaints against this airline. I would not want to see anyone have to go thru this treatment for the money you pay and the poor customer service and just basic service this airline severely lacks. Hope this helps someone make a better choice than I did. Thanks.

After waiting for fuel til after 9pm I begged the staff to please let us off or let us get air. My son was so upset, crying and shaking. Still staff was rude. They gave us new seats. Big deal. We wanted off! So we arrived at Orlando airport after 1030 pm and checked in a different hotel close to the airport! So not only was this the worst flight ever, my poor son is scared to death to fly and we missed his special day at Nickelodeon suites. I called and tried to get a hold of Spirit to at least try to get some of my 250.00 I lost for the room and dinner we couldn't use and no response. This is awful especially for not only my family with a special needs child but everyone who had to smell and ride in a vomit filled plane!

Well, we arrived in Fort Lauderdale and got through passport control quite quickly. But remember, you have to collect your bags on entering the US and check them back in. By the time we ran and arrived at the bag re-check-in counter, we were incredibly late. This is in part due to the fact that the baggage carousel kept stopping and needing to be reset. However, any level-headed airline would have known that you can give passengers an hour to transition from an international flight when that requires customs, passport control, bag pick up and bag drop off. So when we arrived at the counter, we were told it's too late to drop off your bags but you can make a run for it and see if you can get yourselves on the flight (and bring our bags with us, not checked). We ran upstairs only to be told we were too late. Disappointed, we went back downstairs to accept that we would need to get on a later flight.

Two couples were now in front of us in line. They both got put onto the later flight (about 4 hours later). However, when it was our turn, we were told the flight was full. They offered us a flight on Monday. It was Saturday! I thought they were joking. My husband had a return flight home to South Africa booked for the following day (Sunday). I said, "You have to be kidding me." Nope. The only other offer that was made was for us to fly to Chicago that night and then back to New York in the morning. My husband would not have made his flight out of New York to South Africa. Not to mention I didn't for one second trust Spirit not to be late (our first three flights with them were). Oh and they didn't offer to pay for the hotel in Chicago either.

Absolutely no provision was made for us. We had to buy brand new tickets from Jet Blue which cost us a total of $700. We were told we could submit a request to be reimbursed for our flights. I asked how much that would be and no one could tell me. They guessed we would get $50 back per person. So best case scenario says we get $100 back. What about the additional $600 we had to spend as a result of Spirit Air's incredibly poor, even fraudulent, planning? The fact that they sent us upstairs to catch a flight we never would have made? Then cost us the flight we could have booked onto four hours later? $600 is a lot of money. Spirit Air should be 100% responsible for reimbursing me this money and I plan to fight for it. I have never been less impressed by a company.

"I am writing this letter requesting to have my current reservation changed to a future date without paying additional fees. I had Nephrectomy surgery on March 26, 2014 and again on April 1, 2014. I had scheduled a round trip flight from Las Vegas, Nevada to Chicago, Illinois, on April 24, 2014. However, my doctor informed me that I would not be able to travel until May 1, 2014, so I paid the change fees and rescheduled my reservation to May 3, 2014 - May 11, 2014. I revisited the doctor on Sunday, April 27, 2014, due to some complications. The doctor informed me that I have contracted a virus called Shingles. I was prescribed medication to help suppress the virus. However, the virus is still very active at this time and so therefore, I am requesting to have my scheduled trip reschedule for a later date without paying additional fees. My doctor informed me that the virus is contagious (must be covered at all times) and for safety of other travelers I will rather not travel until my body is completely free of the Shingles virus."

Spirit Airlines Support Agent Alicia ** wrote on Apr 30 03:29 PM:

"As listed on our website, you can modify or cancel your award ticket for a $110 fee per customer in addition to any additional miles required for your new itinerary. Changes are allowed for each flight up until the departure time of that flight. Changes allowed include changing the origin, destination, stopover city, flight, or class of service. Cancellations must be prior to the departure of your first flight on your itinerary. Refunds are allowed for reservations made 7 days or more prior to your departure, provided that you make the refund request within 24 hours of your initial reservation.

Although we are empathetic to the circumstances surrounding your situation, our company has found that consistency in the enforcement of the rules surrounding our business policies is the only way to be fair to all of our valued customers. Unfortunately, given the circumstances, the enforcement of our policies does not permit us to waive modification fees or issue a refund. We are committed to offering quality customer service and ensuring that experiences are positive. Thank you for choosing Spirit Airlines."

So my reaction to this is I will never fly with Spirit Airlines again. What Airlines don't care about the health of their customers that they are willing to allow me to fly with a virus and possibly spread it to others passengers? All they care about is me paying them an additional $110.00 to change my flight. Grant you I had already paid $110.00 once to change my flight. This Airline have not a sympathetic heart for anyone only about making money. My Spirit Credit Card will be cancelled as of today. Thanks for allowing me to share my story with you. PEACE AND BLESSINGS.

The only message they gave us is that this is company policy. When some people became outwardly angry due to the time and financial hardships caused by this airline, Broward County sheriff's deputies were called in to keep order. Interestingly, one deputy told us they see this on an almost daily basis regarding Spirit because of so many people's frustration with this airline. Spirit has clearly put their bottom line far above customer service and care. We will never fly this airline again.

I immediately called the Spirit customer service line to remedy the situation and seek reimbursement for the charges that I did not agree to. The customer service group informed me that Spirit airlines would not reimburse me for the improper charges but agreed to switch back the 3 passengers that were incorrectly changed to the later flight time. I spent almost 2 hours on the phone with Spirit representatives and was granted no relief. I have disputed these charges with American Express indicating that the Spirit website did not indicate that it was changing all 4 passengers. Spirit has responded by saying that their policy is that no refunds are ever granted for online transactions regardless of circumstances.

Unlike other complaints I have read, I recognized the error with the website immediately and took action. The Spirit website never informed me that it was making the change for all 4 reservations. Their practices and website are deceptive and criminal. This company needs to be investigated and SHUT DOWN. How many complaints does this airline need against them before the government takes legal and punitive action against them so they are either forced to change or shut down?

I guess there's volumes to be said about an airline that excels in inconveniencing and stranding their customers through underhanded tricks such as the one I was told about. Apparently departure schedules mean nothing to this airline when they can randomly change a departure time without waiting for the paying customers that were counting on the plane being there at the proper time. Needless to say, my ex-wife was forced to drive back, went to the MPLS airport en route home to get her luggage and confronted the airline desk help there and once again they were no help and said that my ex-wife "could fight it all she wanted".

If this story I was told is true then everyone should boycott this airline and put them out of business. The government shouldn't fine them. Put them out of business so someone else with a better business acumen can buy them out and run a better company. If this is true, then how many others have had this happen to them with this airline. Hopefully this can be investigated further and jobs can be lost because of this. If it's true that is. I have no reason to believe it's not. Maybe ask the others.

We had flown Spirit from Chicago only a few days before with no incident. When I tried to call customer service, they would not help. In the meantime, both kids were crying hysterically because they wanted to get on the plane and go home. Eventually, my husband offered to pay the $200, but they put standbys in our seats! At no point did they try to help us because we were stranded in MN. To get on a flight the next day, they were going to charge us the fare difference! Given that they were overbooked and chose for us not to get on the plane, they should have paid for a hotel room and given us vouchers for our inconvenience. Instead, we had to rent a car and drive the 8 hours back home!

What made my decision that I will never fly Spirit again is that we were told after the flight was canceled, that we could either book another flight with Spirit or get a return. The next available flight was on Friday.... This happened on a Tuesday night. This meant that unless we were willing to pay some other airline a bunch of last-minute ticket money, we would be homeless until Friday... in an airport, with a 15-month-old. Or we'd be paying a bunch of money to a hotel. As a family, we are budget conscious. This is why we booked Spirit in the first place. This was like a big slap in the face after giving Spirit almost $900 of our own money.

We got refunded $315 or so from Spirit, but paid another $600 for AA flights (only 2 seats, which is different from the original 3 I had bought from Spirit... Imagine an over-tired cranky 16-month-old on your lap for 2.5 hours... and the poor people around us). They need to find better contingency plans... work with other airlines... something to create a sense of loyalty in the customers. I will never fly Spirit again, and neither will any of my friends, or anyone I know who has children. I'd like to think they would at least help cover the difference in what we had to pay in order to get home and put my son in his own bed... I wish I wasn't so disappointed. I believe in paying for what you use, but this really hurt us financially and emotionally, and I'd rather pay more up front and have options to get home, than to be stranded.

I have been trying to contact a human representative of this pisspoor airline for almost a month, going even so far as to send an eMail to the only human being apparently with one in their company (a member of their Executive board, no less) - to no avail. As it has almost been a month since my trip, I can only assume that even IF I ever seek to a human, I'll not only not be able to redeem my mileage credit, but I'll then be stuck in a crapass, non-interactive, non-serviced or even seemingly legal frequent flyer program on an airline I would only use again in a dire emergency. I could use some help getting my money I blew back too. It'd be nice.

Spirit agent also said that their bagged allowance was not 72, instead 40 lbs, almost half of the int'l passenger's allowed weight. They also charged on top of that an additional fee of $ 50.00 for a standard carry on luggage. A total of $ 200.00 charge on top of a $298.99 one way ticket. A great majority of decent airlines will ask for the international ticket and will follow IATA's guidelines, they refused. Those charges are dishonest, disrespectful to their customers and company such as Spirit should be out of business for ripping people off.

I then went to the Spirit ticket counter in Logan and after some back and forth, they told me they were having problems getting the crew for the flight. Again, more BS. This flight travels every day, why a problem getting the crew. Do their schedulers even have any idea how to do their job? I want the name of the person at Spirit who made the decision to delay this flight and where I can find this person, so I can confront him/her directly. Anyway, about an hour later they changed the board and moved the departure time up by 9 minutes, to 7:01 pm. But this didn't matter, as we did not even start boarding until about that time. Then even after the plane was boarded we faced more delays and ultimately did not take off from the runway until 8:30 pm. NEARLY 3 HOURS LATE! Then we did not get to the gate in FLL until about 11:30pm. To top it all off, they didn't even offer free drinks on the flight, something very common in situations like this.

I contacted Spirit Airlines on 5 March as soon as I was able to to so. I was told by the customer service representative and her supervisor that I forfeited the ticket because I did not board the flight and did not contact them prior to departure to change the ticket. I explained that I understand the rationale for the rule and that passengers should be penalized for not boarding, noting however that Spirit has exceptions to their rule - exigent circumstances, such as weather, beyond the control of the passenger. In fact I was the beneficiary of such an exception a few weeks prior on a scheduled Spirit flight to New York City. Spirit sent me an email indicating that due to inclement weather on the east coast I would be allowed to not board that flight, which did depart anyway, and change to another flight the next day.

I requested the opportunity to move my reservation to another day as I still need to make the trip to Dallas. I was informed there is no way to do it and that I would have to purchase a new ticket and they would be glad to start that process. I objected and asked how is this situation any different than what Spirit did a few weeks prior. The representative refused to answer that question. The Spirit representative consistently said there is nothing they can do.

I finally made it to the floor manager who explained Spirit's online complaint process. I am submitting my documentation (admission and discharge from the hospital) via that process and will await their response.

Now you couldn't pay me enough money to replay the hell we went through with Spirit Airlines from Aruba to FLL which I won't even mention because it is petty compared to the second leg of my flight. No one took their offer and the plane boarded. After all of the seats were taken, they marched a family of four to the rear of the cabin and proceeded to tell us that they needed 4 seats, past offer standing. They said they would hold us on the ground as long as it would take to have 4 people give up their seats... and if that did not happen, they would toss 4 seated passengers off of the flight.

They had manifestos they were reviewing to see who had actually checked in last. I was seated in Row 28 D and beside me was a young mom and her little girl. The girl was tearing up for fear that they would be thrown out into the night with no place to stay, and the young mom was stressing also. There were many other passengers under duress because of their threats. Hell, I am a 53 year old mom of 4, seasoned traveler, and I had never seen anything like this. People were trying to keep their cool but the whole thing was absolutely the fault of Spirit Airlines and their booking staff, therefore, they should not pass pain and suffering onto their passengers. We were held over an hour on the ground by the time they made an announcement that they made a deal with the family of 4, what they should have done to begin with.

So my question to the FAA is: Is it okay for SPIRIT Airlines to hold a full plane of people hostage on the ground and is it okay for Spirit airlines to "blackmail" their passengers? Lastly, is it okay for an airline to threaten passengers and stir up a potential "powder keg" due to the undue stress put upon passengers? I am of the opine that there should be criminal charges filed against "Spirit" Airlines. They informed us when we asked for water that they did not have to give people water until they were grounded for 6 hours. Absolutely outrageous. I respectfully request you to investigate this airline and interview some of their passengers. I am thinking you have a barrel full of complaints on this airline. Please go out and stop their inappropriate tactics, and shenanigans.

Now here is a sobering thought to ponder: If they are willing to take such drastic measures to save operating costs to increase their profits, how likely are they to replace an expensive part. Some parts cost over $100,000, on the airplane that is starting to wear but could possibly fail but could last anywhere from zero to 1000 more flights? I bet they would keep the questionable part in place till it failed rather than preemptively replace it to keep the flight safe. I wish wikileaks or someone would break into their safety maintenance records and confirm my suspicions.

Also I did not had issues paying $50 extra, it was the way those guys were asking for it. I went from counter to counter and everyone will say go to that counter. I don't know what kind of management was that. I will never ever travel with spirit airlines again in my life. These people are rude like hell. I almost missed my flight. I was shouting to them tell me what to do, whom to pay. Bad bad bad airlines. Never travel with them even if you are getting a free ticket. I tried to call their customer care to tell them what happened again. They do not care about you at all. Please take my advise and never travel with.

I also recently booked a flight in January, outbound on Sun Thurs March 13, from Detroit to Fort Myers. The confirmation came back as Sun FEB 9, returning Thurs FEB 13. I never really checked the confirmation, as I have flown many times before with no problems, but in this case I must have goofed. Or at least I thought I did until another couple we ran into in the airport had a similar problem. I'll never know for sure, as Spirit's record is the only one I have to go on at this point. But I learned that you NEED TO REVIEW YOUR CONFIRMATION CAREFULLY AND IMMEDIATELY FOR ACCURACY, AS SPIRIT'S RESERVATION SYSTEM IS NOT ENTIRELY RELIABLE.

I swear most of the people running this airline are mentally deficient. And as all airlines lie, lie, lie, and deny, deny, deny, they are merely the worst of a rather bad lot. "Socialist" (Southwest) Airlines is the possible exception to this rule, but for an airline that bills itself a discount airline, they charge right up front for EVERYTHING whether you need it or not, and their fares bear that out. I like Spirit's menu driven philosophy, it's PAY AS YOU GO for EVERYTHING. The only thing included in your base fare is a seat somewhere on the plane, and one personal item (up to the size of a small backpack). Everything else is optional, which is good thing, if you take the glass half full approach. A few more notes on Spirit Airlines, for the uninitiated:

1. Spirit operates like a gypsy third world airline. Look at the thuggish attitude when booking online ("government's cut" - what sort of business mentality thinks like that, as though airports, the TSA and air traffic control infrastructure should be free?). The fares are attractive, being half of what other airlines charge. But they are sneaky, and their system is quirky, and I now believe it is part of their MO to frustrate and peel more money out of their customers, by giving them a runaround on check-in, bags, and boarding. I've arrived at the airport 45 minutes before my flight time with no bags and been told by the counter agent to check in at the kiosk across the way. By the time the kiosk took my Spirit MC and identified me, it sent me right back to the counter (!!), where the agent said I could no longer get on the flight. And in a VERY nasty way (Spirit's employees are generally rude and arrogant, but they only pay their people $12/hour, so they are full of attitude, just like their bosses apparently are).

You absolutely MUST check every detail on your reservation and correct any mistakes within a matter of a few hours, and for heaven's sake, get to the GATE (not the check-in counter) at least 30 minutes before flight time. Spirit likes to "bank" time by filling the plane and leaving early, and their employees seem to love to say NO, throw their weight around, and frustrate their customers. It's almost like a sadistic game they play if you cut things a bit too close for their liking.

In general, you CAN save money by flying Spirit, but you need to adjust to their system, which is arrogant and unforgiving. BEWARE, and be aware! My education has cost me many hundreds of dollars, but I have probably saved more over the years. And all in all, they are the worst airline, but also the cheapest. And they are constantly out of supplies on board, even the beer, wine, and vodka that they can sell at a profit, if they could keep it in stock. I suspect their employees pilfer half the stuff, which is their way of getting even with the nastiness of their employers. Remember, all that nasty attitude runs downhill to the front line.

To the lady who thought they were being sneaky by putting her and her husband in seats A and C, and suspected them of forcing you to pay for seat upgrades to be seated together: I may be responsible for that, and it's NOT A BAD THING. I always reserve a window and aisle seat for my wife, and we have NEVER had anyone refuse the aisle seat when we offered it. It is actually a NICE thing to do for someone who thought they were stuck in the middle. And I like to think Spirit picked up on that, and now intentionally fills seats that way, especially if they forecast that the plane will not be full. And lucky you, nobody sat in the "other" seat anyway, even after you paid for the "reserved" seat upgrade.

Lastly, never count on Spirit's "customer service" function, as it is a total waste of time. After maddening wait times, and several menus usually aimed at selling you other services, you MAY get to some $3/hr person in the Philippines who will ALWAYS tell you they can't help you, and there is no refund for ANYTHING, which is about all you will understand with their heavily accented English. Now I've come full circle. As I said at the outset, it's a third world airline. And believe it or not, they have gotten BETTER over the past couple of years, at least newer planes, and more on time performance.

It was very frustrating. I had already paid for my seat assignments and luggage online prior to the trip. I had to take 3 planes and sleep overnight in the Ft Lauderdale terminal, miss a day of work as did my wife and spend an additional 600+ dollars to get home. From what I've read this company is very unforgiving and is all about the money. Frankly I'll be spending my money somewhere else and I advise you to do the same. I've send Spirit a complaint but I was in the wrong so I'm sure I will get nothing from them other than an expensive lesson.

Now, the ticket that I bought can't be used because my partner is in the ICU, and I am losing a bunch MORE money having to purchase another ticket to visit him. Especially now, with all of his medical bills money is so so so tight - and I just want to be by him, helping him to recover and hopefully move into a physical therapy hospital. I lift his spirits so much and this time in his recovery is critical for long-term success. I would move to him in a heartbeat except I need to keep my job for our now ever increasing finances. At least his RT ticket could have been exchanged for a RT ticket for me but no, Spirit won't do that.

The former passenger (my partner) and myself are both Free Spirit members too! We have a history of flying Spirit at least once a month for years, all across the country, and internationally. But Spirit did not return any of the credit, faith, kindness, or money we have put into helping build their company. I was always the person defending Spirit when people talk of the crappy service they received. Well, I am no longer the one defending Spirit Airlines. To Note: The actual people on the phone and through all of the communication were very nice; however, they were unable to reach anyone in a place of power where these decisions are actually made. That is why I gave Customer Service 2 stars instead of 1.

I then asked if they could find me another flight that would have any planes landing in New Orleans that night so I could attend my brother's funeral the following day. I was told that no other flights were going to be able to connect me in Dallas so I could go to New Orleans and the best thing I could do was wait until tomorrow and catch the same flight only a day later. I was then offered a refund on the ticket and was told to have a nice day. I then had to use the money I was refunded which did not post to my card immediately to purchase another ticket through a better airline (I loved US AIR BTW) just so I could reach my destination that night. NO THANKS TO SPIRIT AIRLINES. MY ADVICE IS TO STAY AS FAR AWAY FROM SPIRIT AS POSSIBLE... WORST AIRLINE EVER...

I am mad that I have to flight out without my family, (they will fly with Delta airlines) but I refuse to let Spirit Airlines get any more money from me. They will be out of business soon and blame it on the economy. But it will be because they are evil and they don't care, I hope you will help me make it sooner and stop flying Spirit Airlines so they can stop taking advantage of people in a time of a father;s Death. I will use every media outlet possible to share my story. COMPANIES ARE NOT PEOPLE.

Showed up to check on, and to my none surprise, the jet was pulling away. Merry Xmas!! They assumed that everyone had checked on board. WRONG. Couldn't retrieve jet, and told me with a sour pussed attitude that I would have to wait until Wed for the next flight. I was in great despair and the idiot clerks were telling jokes among themselves laughing. I asked for a supervisor, turns out she was standing right there... part of the joke telling. I asked her to please remove her hair from covering up her name tag. Supervisor?? A snot nose with pimples. Then there is the luggage issue, but I won't go there because I feel my blood pressure rising. THE WORST. NEVER book with Spirit unless you take out a life insurance policy.

When I called back to "Customer Service" I was told they can't hold it but the airline ticket counter can. But again could not give me the number so said I had to go to my airport to talk to someone. After being hung up when asked for a manager, I called back and when I refused to give the information again I was told that she was a manager so give her the info, then admitted they were not the manager. Came back to me and said that even the manager and supervisor would tell me the same thing that I need to go to my local airport and talk to them. 4 hours later still trying to talk to a manager to get info on where to complain and to get her return flight held or even repurchased.

I contacted the agency, which was luckily still open at the time. They contacted Spirit and pretty much repeated what the lecturer had told me. I still do not have a straight story on why this cancellation happened. Luckily, the agency was able to book him for American Airlines and he got to New York without further problems. This is still an unresolved issue for our office with regards to the original charges. The agency said they would mail us a check as compensation if they cannot get anywhere with Spirit; this was good on their part but not fair, really, because they would have to foot the bill for an airline's incompetence.

Spirit was actually suggested by the lecturer so I naturally went along with his idea in order to be accommodating. I have since read the many complaints that travelers have posted about their filthy planes, tiny fleet, clueless employees, and total lack of professionalism. Spirit tickets are cheap at initial booking, but you have to pay outrageous fees for carry-ons and in-flight refreshments. The company has been actually ranked as one of the world's worst airlines and the only American company in the top 5.

On the return trip, the clerk's computer crashed when I arrived at to check my bag and get my boarding pass. Then the clerk didn't know how the firearms declaration process works and had to find someone to help her. During the flight, the flight attendants ran out of food and beverages on aisle 15. I was seated on aisle 16. These people are negligent and dangerous.

When I tried to check-in, it just wouldn't allow. I called Spirit Airlines and was told that the entire ticket was forfeited, since I didn't inform them of not taking the First leg of the flight! I don't understand this policy. I pay for the trip. If I don't take one leg of the flight, that seat has been paid for, I should be entitled to use the second leg of the flight!. Spirit charges me the entire amount of ticket and doesn't even allow me to take second leg of the flight! Also they couldn't place a courtesy call to let me know that the ticket has been forfeited. Instead I get an email to check-in for the flight! This is a rip-off! I had to book an urgent $719.8 flight, plus $35.25 of check in luggage fees.

The next day they called us and said that our bags would arrive at our destination but that we would have to go BACK to the airport (which was 45 minutes away & we were already on our vacation) to pick them up or they would charge us $60 to deliver the bag. I was firm but respectful and communicated to them that was unacceptable and that we shouldn't have to pay for them not getting our bags to us. I respectfully wouldn't take "no" for an answer and the "regional manager" HUNG UP on me mid sentence. Because the manager hung up on us we haven't been able to resolve the issue and still haven't received our bags.

Unfortunately companies such as this seem not to realize that with the advent of social media the best advertisement is word of mouth! I have read nothing positive about Spirit Airlines anywhere. As someone who works in the service industry I think it safe to say that this airline will be out of business in 5 years or less. It was interesting to see so much confusion and people seemingly just not knowing what their job function was? I will never ever fly this airline again.

I was there and ON TIME but I missed my flight because the employees don't know what they are doing or how to work. Not my fault. They are rude and not polite. I tried to talk to many employees from spirit but they just gave me a option to go to other airport that was 3 hours away or taking another flight on the next day (but I would not accept that because a had a court scheduled on the next day at 9am). Then they said that they would call the security if I didn't leave. So I left the airport and I started calling then trying to get a refund. So they didn't refund me and also said that they had cancelled the back flight and they would not refund anything because of their policy. I feel like I was robbed by spirit and I think they should respect their customers!

Naturally, I feel I was conned by the lack of disclosure during the initial communication from the company about these programs. To add insult to the process, there is apparently no way to contact a "real" customer service representative (nor a process to send an e-mail complaint) at Spirit to discuss my displeasure and any recourse regarding these issues. Even canceling my credit card account through Bank of America proved very cumbersome and frustrating.

Then as I'm boarding the plane and the staff asked how I was and I replied HORRIBLE! Then I continued to explain to them what happened to me at the gate. Instead of trying to make my flight enjoyable they added more fire to my stress level by being rude. I WILL NEVER EVER, EVER FLY SPIRIT AGAIN! EVEN IF THEY GAVE ME FREE TICKETS I WOULD TELL THEM NEVER AGAIN... My blood pressure was thru the roof. What a way to start my vacation. Now I'm trying to dispute the charges and they still don't get it. They think that I'm disputing a charge for a boarding ticket. This is CRAZY.

I went back to my emails from Spirit on that day and found not a cancellation but another confirmation, very similar to what I had received when I did the initial booking. But after looking at it more closely it did not mention the flight at all but still not really a cancellation notice. And we never received a refund of our airfare back in May. Had either the cancellation happened or the refund happened back in May we would have happily spent this last week on vacation in Myrtle Beach having ample time to book alternative transportation.

We did receive a full refund of the trip cost this week but this lack of notification on their end resulted in us not being able to go on our much anticipated vacation. Finding out the day before departure that we had no way to go on our vacation was very upsetting. What kind of company cancels a flight without notification or refund and leaves the hotel and car part of the vacation package booked?

When I called the airport, they gave me the number that I had just called and the next person I talked to told me there was a mistake and I would not get a voucher and the only thing they could do was rebook my flight for the next day (which there was no guarantee), refund our money. And the refund would be credited to my friend's account within 5 to 7 days. I'm not sure if you know when you call, you are talking to people in the Philippines who speak in broken English. So what do we do??? We need that money to rent a car to get home or sit at the airport for 24 hours and wait for the next flight which we were not sure we would get on.

We ended up renting a car going one way to Philadelphia. We were lucky to get one of the last 2 cars left. It took us over 12 hours to get home due to my condition and having to stop so that I could get up and walk around. Plus more money for gas and food. I'm just glad we had a major credit card with us or we would have been screwed. We paid cash for our trip and then have to wait to get it back?? Lies, Lies, Lies!!! I feel like I need to let the public know how this airlines works. That they get their money and couldn't care less about you after that. Thank you.

When returning home, there was another departure delay of 30 minutes due to appropriate documentation not being on board. We finally fly into Baltimore this morning vowing to never fly Spirit again and then find that my bag that we paid an arm and a leg in fees for is lost! Immediately the young lady blames us for not arriving early enough and sometimes the bags don't make it on the flight. I quickly corrected her by letting her know we checked in 3 hours early. My first trip to Las Vegas and our Anniversary ruined because of the unnecessary stress caused by this questionable airline. By the way, the tracking number they gave me to check on my luggage doesn't work.

We would have to pay an extra $50.00 in order to sit together!! We decided to take our chances in hopes that the person sitting between us would be nice enough to switch seats. Well, as it turned out, no one sat in our row at all. I believe it is a scam to separate couples in order to goat them into purchasing the higher priced seats to sit together as they realize every couple wants to. I decided to purchase the $14.00 seats on the return flight as we were traveling the all night flight and did not want to take a chance of having to fall asleep with my head resting on a stranger’s shoulders!! However, again, on the return flight, no one sat in our row.

Food: Before we even left the ground, the stewardess asked us if we wanted to purchase snack food. We asked for a menu that was supposed to be in the back of each seat. We were told they were low on menus but she would try and find us one. Eventually she found a menu for us to view. We decided on a certain snack and then was told, "Oh, we are all out of those." My question is, how can an airline be out of a certain item when they have not even left the ground yet? Do they not restock before flight? The "children's" snack packs they provided for purchase took the edge off, but in no way satisfied an empty stomach!

Housekeeping: The captain made an announcement right before we landed that in order to keep the prices of flying low, would we all cooperate in gathering up our trash and handing it to the stewardess. I have no problem with that, except we were walking the isles on our way off the plane. We noticed all the crud and leftover particles of food and what not on the floor beneath the seats and in the walkway. It was obvious they do not vacuum the floors for days or more. Again, that is not so bad, but why would you ask the passengers to help "tidy" up the plane before landing when they cannot even keep the floor clean. In addition, the bathroom sink was clogged up with water and stunk!

Check in: Since we printed out our own boarding passes, we could also use the "fast drop off" for our luggage. However, there was nothing "fast" about it in the Vegas terminal. We arrived at the airport at 21:10. Our flight was due for take off at 22:40. We did not waste any time. We dropped off our luggage, went through security and began making our way to gate B23. On the way, we heard an announcement, "Will the ** family please come to gate B23. This is the last call before takeoff." We ran through the terminal, my husband nearly collapsed at the gate. The spokesperson said, "Good, get on the plane now as they are closing the doors in one minute."

After we finally sat in our seats, we realized it was now 22:30!!! 10 minutes before the scheduled flight takeoff! Of course we read the status in the airport and it stated the plane was on time. How can they decide to leave 10 minutes early, close the door and not allow a paying customer to get onboard?? Not to mention the flats of our feet and our calves were extremely sore from the sprint through the airport. We are in our 50's. What if this couple would have been much older? They would have missed their flight even though they did everything right!!

Stewardesses: Although this did not affect the outcome of our vacation, it sure puts a damper on one’s flying enjoyment. The stewardesses, male and female, go through their very important routine of describing the exits, oxygen and floatation devices. This is something I take very seriously. I read the provided pamphlet in every detail. In the event of an emergency, I want to be able to get off the plane in hopes of saving my life and my travel companions. Their attitude towards the descriptions is flat, routine and bored. It is obvious that they are tired of the "same old" routine, but they forget that the routine may not be so "same old" for the passengers and that many of us really DO want to know this information. I sure would not want to have my life in the hands of those people in the event of an emergency! Why not explain it in a way that is understandable, friendly and with at least a hair of interest on their part??

Blankets and pillows: Really??? We have to pay $7.00 for a blanket and a pillow? I was cold on the return flight and desperately tried to get some sleep, although impossible considering the small size of the seats and the air blowing on me. However, I was not about to pay a fee just to be comfortable!!! Do all airlines charge for that now? Airline tickets are not any cheaper now than when I traveled years ago; however, now we must pay for every single item of need. Really, a simple cup of coffee has to be paid for by the passengers? No books, no TV, no music, no leg room, no blankets or pillows; not even a bag of nuts anymore. Do not even let me get started on the bag fees!!! Flying has become ridiculous, or is it just "Spirit" that treats people like cattle rather than paying passengers?

I will NEVER fly Spirit airlines again, and from what I have read, neither will many other people. The only consolation is that they will not be in business for much longer. There is way too much competition out there for any airline to be so damn callous towards their paying passengers!!! Flew on 9/8 - 9/13, Flight 394 from Vegas to Philadelphia (return flight). Wake up people, you just lost another passenger!!!

I called back and was informed my credit had expired. Why didn't the first agent who told me to call back in August or September warn me that my credit would expire? Why did he lead me to believe I could still apply my credit at this time? Spirit Air is not fair and its agents are not well-informed; therefore, misleading information is distributed, causing the customer (me!) to lose ALL of the purchase price, including (and this is REALLY not fair!): baggage fees (I never traveled, so why can't they refund that fee?), international departure tax (I never left the US, so why do I have to forfeit this?), customs fee, immigration fee and tourism tax for the country of origin. Boo! Bad business practices don't get them any friends or customers!

"Good Morning, Spirit Airlines Executives. I am not sure how you do business but this is how customer service does (or doesn't, because I have yet to get a reply). I am more beside myself that I can't get anyone to answer an email, let alone the three that I wrote as damning as this, so I figured the board and other executives should now be aware of the situation. In no way should I not get resolution!!! UNACCEPTABLE.

Forgettable trip to Las via Bwi- Not a fan

To CustomerSupport

need a window seat. About 30 minutes in, I felt something the matter with the seat, like a bar jabbing me in the back. After the finished beverage service, I let a representative know and was able to find me a different seat in an aisle. I decided to stay where I was because it was a window seat.

About the beverage service, you really couldn't feel the love of a complimentary drink for what was then a five-hour flight. I was still determined to have a good flight even through this and the very bad jokes the flight crew made over the intercom. Very bad. The guy needed to practice his delivery in a mirror or something A LOT more. Then we land in Vegas only 17 minutes late. Pretty smooth flight, $3 soda, bar sticking into my back but at least we are on the ground. This is when it gets unacceptable.

communication to what number it was going to be on. You did not just make one person not a fan but I overheard many more people not as vocal as me state the unacceptableness.

What is worse is by the time you add all the nickel and dime stupid charges, you end up paying around the same as other airlines were charging. So I am writing you to let you know that this experience was not good and now I have to back on this airline, this time with my wife and have to listen to her thoughts about the airline. I don't know what can be done but these issues need to be addressed."

On Aug 17 (4 days ago) to Customer Support:

"I can't believe I can't get a response from an email like this. It's nice to know how much people care. If you guys can give me the decency of replying to an email that was so damning, you deserve everything you get. I would like a reply from the president of the company or someone similar. I will hit every review site on the planet with the exact email that went unresponsive and let you sink like I, your customers, feel after flying Spirit."

On Aug. 18 to Spirit:

"Also I would like thank the Spirit employee working the outside area last night that spoke very demeaning to my wife and me that insisted since I had no luggage and i just had my boarding pass, I still had to check in and wait in line. That'll be 40 minutes of time that I will never get back. No the answers or don't have them help customers. Plane was very smooth coming home but my wife says, if we fly Spirit again, she won't travel with me. Thanks, Spirit."

When we finally landed in Vegas three hours late, it was complete chaos with people flopped everywhere because their flights were delayed by ours coming in late. I have never heard so many people stating that they had no idea that Spirit was so bad and declared that they would never fly with Spirit again. After all this, I wised up and started googling.. found out I was lucky just not to have the flight cancelled with no notice! I was really paranoid about flying back with them - was I going to make it? I did some research and found that of all 6 flights that week going to Philly, all of them had gone but 5 had been late, so I decided just to suck it up, roll the dice and hope I made it. Luckily for me, that flight left only an hour late, but I did make it back. NEVER AGAIN. When I added up the $80 I spent to the airfare, I could have booked a flight with a legitimate airline instead. AVOID, AVOID, AVOID.

Anyway, Vegas left over an hour late and I was late to a very important meeting in Houston. Right now as I'm typing this I'm sitting in the E terminal at DFW and guess what? Yep, Spirit is so far 2 hours delayed for mechanical reasons. It will be a miracle if I get home today. Needless to say I will never fly Spirit again. What a great business model, "Losing one customer at a time, every time!" Be this a warning to all. Planes are dirty, homeless people are flying this line, and it totally reminds me of those overcrowded buses in South America with 500 Guatemalans stuffed in/on complete with chickens and sheep. Never had a problem on any other airline in 16 years of global travel.

I have traveled in many airlines before and unlike any other Airlines that charges you a fee to change your dates due to unforeseen circumstances, I was punished by being charged their ridiculous fee plus whatever difference off their so-called price change but this is the kicker. At the time I try changing this, the site was not functioning properly (very convenient ) so end up costing me extra because I could not make the changes myself in the Internet. Mind you this was due to a malfunction on their website. However they said they were not related/associated to whatever goes on the website and I quote the rep "Because it was over the phone with a human being" it was going to be a little extra.

I can honestly tell you that this will be the first and last time that I, my family or any known associative of mine deal with this sham of airline. Please do your homework and research. Do not fly with these scammers. Whatever it may seem like a savings at the beginning, you will pay dearly later on. They have no customer service whatsoever. Don't travel Spirit, not under any circumstances.

I would like to sincerely thank you for starting my trip from DFW airport to Chicago O’Hare on a rather athletic note. As a mom of two small children, who do not travel lightly, it was a refreshing way to kick off my 6 am flight with a little cross-terminal sprint at 4:15 in the morning. You see, while many airlines would have the accurate check-in gate listed on their website, Spirit instead chose to advise we check in on the opposite end of terminal E from where we were supposed to be. The resulting dash with two kids under the age of three (and about 150 pounds of luggage) gave me just the cardio workout I was hoping to achieve prior to boarding. While I’m sure my fellow passengers did not appreciate the malodorous sweat pouring from my body throughout the flight, I can rest assured knowing I am just that much closer to losing the last of my baby weight.

To then be given adequate rest afterward was an additional reward, as I was really quite exhausted at that point. In standing behind only two customers at the ticket counter for 45 minutes, I was able to recoup from my workout and hone my toddler-amusement skills. At 5:00 a.m., it is usually fairly easy to keep any small child enthused, but my daughter is not the average child. So, thank you again for giving me the opportunity to challenge myself as a parent. I appreciate the fact that the ticket agent so graciously agreed not to upcharge me $50 for the two pounds that my bag was overweight. Because although it was, of course, my error in overpacking, it was nice to know that after a near-miss of my flight because of the line at your ticket counter, I would not be screwed over in that regard. Again, I choose to focus on the positive.

Interestingly enough, I learned what it’s like to be the last person on the plane for this trip. As my husband and I hoisted our children and our bags through the airport (because again, we had to sprint to the opposite end of the terminal), we were thrilled to see that the plane had not left yet when we finally reached our gate. Thankfully, I perfected my “mommy stink eye” when boarding, because I got a hefty dose of embarrassment and shameful glares from 100 other passengers as we practically threw our children into their seats. Because, you know. We had become those people. The last ones on the plane. It was good for me to learn how to say “eff off” with my eyes, because I’m sure I’ll need to remember how to do that at some point in the future. So, again, thanks for that.

Once we were airborne, everything was fine. Thankfully, that flight landed, and we managed to get off the plane without further incident. As we drove away from O’Hare Airport last Tuesday morning, I dismissed our experience as a funny story to tell later, and assumed that my flight home would be much better. Boy, was I right. Flight 903 from O’Hare to DFW was, in a word, delightful.

Thinking ahead, I decided to check on the flight status as I drove into the airport, and was quite amused at the little joke Spirit Airlines put on the website last night. Some prankster had updated our flight status to show our 8-ish pm flight departing at 1:30 a.m. Ha! What a laugh. I was so tickled that Spirit would have a sense of humor like that. Because no airline in their right mind would ask passengers with two small children, and nowhere else to go, to wait inside the airport for 6 hours. While I did attempt to call several of the customer service numbers listed on the website, to respond “who’s there?” to this obvious knock-knock joke, I was even more pleased to find no human being to speak with. I am quite the robot enthusiast, the automated phone prompts were just a cherry on top of this hilarious joke. Since we assumed this information could not possibly be accurate, we forged ahead.

Having remembered our previous luck, we managed to arrive at the airport quite a bit earlier, and were thrilled to find the ticker counter line was at least 75-people deep, moving molasses slow. Again. The good news was, this time we had booked an 8:00 pm flight home, so our kids were nice and tired. The mile-long wait at the ticket counter this time was even better than the one on our first trip, because now we got to practice our parent-child communication skills on children who had become deaf from fatigue. Dr. Spock may have a replacement in my husband and I, because we came up with things to keep our kids busy during that hour-long wait to get to the ticket counter that may have been illegal in some countries. And we didn't even have to give them sedatives! So thanks, again, for that opportunity to enrich my parenting career with some troubleshooting exercises. Really, top-drawer on Spirit Airlines’ part.

Imagine my glee then, when the ticket agent confirmed that the flight was, in fact, delayed almost six hours. My colicky 6-month old was even more excited, because he absolutely adores the sound of his thundering screams in the echoing halls of an airport. Six hours of piercing cries at supersonic decibels? Oh, boy! We did truly appreciate the food vouchers we received. Being given coupons for food that essentially expired within an hour of our arrival gave us the thrilling experience of a flash-picnic. Since the only restaurants that were open would close 4 hours before our flight would leave, we got to play toddler-barf-roulette with our daughter, and see how much we could stuff her with chicken nuggets without making her vomit. We learned that seven nuggets are enough to keep her full until the flight takes off, without the hefty spew from an over-stuffed belly.

So although I was near tears for the duration of our delay, between my son screaming and my daughter drunk-hyper from fatigue, I am grateful that the experience did not end in bile. I was delighted when my daughter and several other young girls formed a new friendship during their airport slumber party, and highly enjoyed running herd on my slap-happy child for the evening. Having nowhere to eat, sleep, or find entertainment for my boisterous little one was a real bonding experience for my husband and I, and we wouldn't trade it for the world. We had been considering a couple’s retreat to rekindle our flame, but instead received a two-fer in that hostage situation at O’Hare Airport. It was like our own personal game of “Naked and Afraid: Airport Edition,” but we had to stay dressed. Oh, joy of joys!

Once we got on the plane, again, everything was wonderful. The flight attendants were lovely. We did not crash. At that point, I considered this a huge victory. When we finally landed at 4:00 a.m., so grateful was I to be back home in DFW that I practically cried. Instead, I just cried for practice. Now, I’ll get serious.

I am aware that mechanical issues happen. I am aware that circumstances beyond the airline’s control occasionally prevent optimum service. But to have been met with such a wholly unsatisfying, stressful, time-wasting travel experience all but ruined my trip. We had flown home to see my family, who I only get to see once a year (if I’m lucky), and were unexpectedly informed the day before our trip that we would also have to bury my husband’s grandfather while we were there. To deal with the grief of losing this great man, a Korean war veteran, in addition to finding some modicum of time to enjoy ourselves with family we hadn't seen in years, was an emotionally draining experience. Spirit Airlines had an opportunity to ease our burden, in creating a travel experience that was as stress-free as possible. Instead, we were met with anxiety, missed expectations, and poor service.

While I am grateful to have received some time with people I love, I am wholeheartedly disappointed that my trip was bookended with this kind of airline experience. I’m sure you get these kinds of comments regularly, and I’m sure that as a low-cost carrier, your prerogative is to hold your hands up and say, “Hey, you get what you pay for.” But the next time someone in your family dies, and you have to fly Spirit to get to the funeral, see how easily you can remove the blame and just accept Spirit Airlines’ failures as a price to pay for cheap airfare. The blessing in all of this is that it was my family who had to wait, instead of someone who needed to get home even worse than I did. Thank God, at least that it was me, instead of a brave soul in uniform. Oh, and by the way. If you’re going to make me wait six hours to get on your airplane, instead of offering me a hotel room or travel vouchers for your horrendous fail, don’t ever ask me to pay for a can of Diet Coke once I get on your godforsaken aircraft.

Being a lady, I packed a weekend's worth of clothes in my oversize "purse" to avoid the $40+ carry-on fee and didn't have any issues at the gate. While there were no major problems with the outbound flight to Chicago, be aware that when you fly Spirit, you are essentially boarding a Greyhound bus in the sky. The passengers were seriously filthy and loud - way too many homeless-looking people who did not understand that the purpose of headphones is to be able to listen to your music in PRIVATE. I boarded the plane, popped a sleep aid, and thankfully, the experience was mercifully over in 2 hours. While I felt the need to shower in Lysol repeatedly upon de-planing, I had made it safely from Point A to Point B on time.

The real problems began on my leg back. I was due to fly out Monday morning, 7/29, on a 5:57am flight back to LGA. I went to bed at 10pm, all packed and ready to go, checked to make sure the flight was still departing as scheduled. All systems were a go. I was awakened at 2am by a phone call from a mystery number. Fearing the worst, I answered and was informed that my flight was cancelled with no explanation given by the call center worker. Not sweating it, I asked what my options were, reasonably thinking they would be able to accommodate me on the next flight that morning or on another airline. The poor call center worker told me there was NOTHING they could do, as all ORD/LGA Spirit flights the rest of the day were booked for the remainder of the day and the best they could do was put me on a flight for TUESDAY morning, more than 24 hours later from when I was originally supposed to depart.

I asked if they could put me on a departing flight on another airline but was informed that they do not have any partnerships with any other airline. I can understand why all of the major carriers such as Delta/AA/Jetblue etc., while definitely not perfect themselves, would NEVER want to associate with such a shoddy and poorly run fly-by-night operation. Given that I was in Chicago trying to go to New York, not some remote corner of the world, I thought it was COMPLETELY unacceptable that the best they could do was a return more than 24 hours later. There are seriously flights between the two cities every 20 minutes.

Spirit was completely mechanically aloof and unapologetic, and did not even offer to put me up in a hotel for the night had I chosen to stay an extra day. I asked to speak to a "manager" and requested a full refund for the entire amount I had paid for the trip, but was told that because I boarded the outgoing leg, the best they could do was a $140 refund for the leg that was canceled (note that this is not even half of the original $330 I paid for the round-trip). I am not going to hold my breath on when that will supposedly show up on my credit card statement.

Faced with no other realistic options and a job and life to get back to in NYC, I had to suck it up and shell out another $300 on my own for a one-way ticket the same day back to New York. All in all, I spent $630 on a trip that should have been $400 had I just gone with a major carrier the first time. I called Spirit again yesterday to speak with a "manager" to inform them I had had to purchase my own return fare and demanded a full refund for the Spirit trip (again) and was HUNG UP ON (after being on hold nearly 45 minutes). I am fuming.

Completely absurd and unacceptable to be essentially stranded for more than 24 hours in a city with multiple flights an hour to New York without any recourse or compensation. Moral of the story: save yourself the headache and high blood pressure that inevitably comes from dealing with Spirit and just pony up the extra $100 to fly on a legit airline that actually pretends to value their customers. I have made it my mission to tell EVERYONE - friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, random folks on the internet - to avoid the nightmare that is Spirit Airlines. I would give them 0 stars if I could, and cannot wait until they inevitably go bankrupt.

Total non-weather flight delays endured for a four-day vacation: 10 hrs.

The story: My girlfriend's mother has a condo in North Myrtle Beach, which allows us the opportunity to have a great beach vacation without the cost of a hotel. We had taken a trip to Myrtle a couple of years ago en route to a wedding in Raleigh, and had a great time hanging out with friends who joined us from Charlotte. For my birthday this year, my girlfriend surprised me by planning a four-day getaway vacation to Myrtle where we would once again meet with our Charlotte friends, as well as her cousin from N.Y.

We live in Western Massachusetts, and Hartford is the closest major airport, but Boston/Logan, Manchester, N.H., and Albany are all about 90 mins away. When we last came to Myrtle we actually flew Manchester-Raleigh with a brief layover, and drove the 3 hrs or so to Myrtle. It worked out well, but this time my girlfriend decided that she would save me the hassle of that drive and maximize our beach time by booking a flight that went direct to MYR. Spirit was the only direct flight, and their odd flight times to and from Boston (5:20am departure BOS-MYR, 10:30pm departure MYR-BOS; their only flights each day in each direction) actually worked well for us to be able to get as much vacation time in as possible.

After a brief nap Tuesday night, we left for Logan at 1am Wednesday. We parked at the rental car facility and shuttled to the terminal at 3:30. Upon arriving at the Spirit ticketing counter to check our pre-paid bags, the agent informed us that our 5:20am flight was already delayed to 10:30am. I had spent days researching Spirits terrible record of customer satisfaction leading up to this trip, so much so that I had actually begun angering my GF because she felt I was second-guessing her extremely well-intentioned vacation plans. Thanks to the thousands of disgruntled customer reviews on the net and the four-month flight tracking history available from Flight Aware, I was guessing our flight to MYR would leave on time (first flight of the day and all), but that we'd likely face an hour or more delay returning Saturday night.

When told that our departure was delayed 5 hrs. immediately upon our arrival at the airport, however, I was shocked. Apparently the 4pm departure from Atlantic City to Boston the previous afternoon had been delayed for more than seven hours due to a mechanical issue. The late arrival to BOS meant the crew from that flight, scheduled to crew our flight at 5:20am, had exceeded their 16hr FAA-regulated workday, and needed their minimum rest before our flight could leave. Spirit, however, had a flight from BOS back to ACY scheduled at 8:30am that morning and this flight departed on time. Why could Spirit not swap crews, let us leave at 8:30 or earlier, and delay the ACY flight 90 mins? Better yet, when confronted with the seven-hour delay the previous day, and knowing full-well the crew would exceed their time, why didn't Spirit bring another crew to BOS in advance of the next days flight, the first on a run that after MYR was scheduled to continue to Ft. Lauderdale and then to San Juan, PR (and back)?

The answer is the same reason that Spirit has the smallest seats in the US airline industry, and why they charge $3.50 for coffee and water - Ben Baldanza is a greedy ** who cares not one whit about his customers. As Spirits CEO, Baldanza has crafted a company that strives for one thing only a higher share price for its investors. Under the guise of offering the lowest fares in the country (a debatable claim, as well, once all of the baggage and comfort fees are factored into the base ticket price), he has built an ultra-low-cost carrier that squeezes every penny of savings out of every single flight mile. Some of his innovations are actually sound ideas that really don't affect a travelers trip the netted chairback pouches reduce cabin cleaning times; the lack of framing around the under-seat storage space reduces weight. Many of his policies impact travelers in major ways, however the famous carryon fees, the fees for all non-alcoholic beverages, the upwards of 20 extra seats (that do not recline) crammed into their Airbus jets, etc., all make for unpleasant trips for those unprepared for Spirit's cheapness.

And then there are the policies that can ruin vacations. Packing as many flights into an aircrafts day as possible, so that minor delays early on can become major delays later in the planes workday. A lack of stand-by crew, on call pilots and flight attendants that can be shuttled to trouble spots as needed. Too few gate agents informed and willing to assist travelers facing significant delays. Not enough gates leased at airports to accommodate the pass-through of the airlines planes. No codeshare agreements with other airlines to assist travelers left stranded by any or all of the above. The results for his company's share price are hard to argue Spirit is recording higher profits than most other airlines. However, his religiosity to the corporate bottom line butts against customer satisfaction, and for this Baldanza basically says, "Screw you."

Baldanza views his passengers as America's traveling lowest-common-denominator, folks who are only flying his airline because its the cheapest. And because of that view, he believes that if he screws over 150 people on a flight who swear they'll never fly Spirit again, there will be 150 more cheapskates ready to save $20 bucks on his next flight. He has been quoted saying as much in a widely-reported email he sent following one traveler's complaint. We owe him nothing as far as I'm concerned. Baldanza wrote to an employee in 2007 about the aggrieved passenger. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He's never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.

What this man does not realize (or publicly acknowledge) is that because his airline services smaller airports under-served by major carriers, Siprit is frequently the only game in town. And when major airline-initiated delays occur in and out of a vacation destination like Myrtle Beach or international connection points like Chicago/O'Hare, NYC/LaGuardia, LAX, or Ft. Lauderdale passengers vacations can be ruined. Oh, your flight to New York is delayed five hours due to non-weather problems? It's probably an oft-repeated line from their foreign-based customer call center representatives. That's too bad. Here's a $100 future flight credit you can use within the next 12 months, but we won't be able to help you find a new flight to Paris to make up for the one we caused you to miss. Good luck, and thank you for choosing Spirit Airlines.

Since our first day in Myrtle was pretty much washed away thanks to the five-hour delay (and it would have been a wonderful beach day, too; as it turned out we only had one more day of good weather while we were there), I watched the airlines website for updates on our return flight throughout the day Saturday. As we arrived at the airport that evening in advance of the 10:30pm departure, we were aware of the 60 min. delay they had been reporting most of the day. Once again, however, when we arrived at the ticket counter to check our bags were told that we were delayed until at least 1:45am. This time the reason given was a mechanical issue. My girlfriend started to cry, and I was livid. Almost 10 hours of flight delays during a four-day vacation more than 10% of our entire trip none of which caused by weather.

All night no updates were provided to the passengers waiting at the gate, and when the plane finally arrived from Ft. Lauderdale and began de-boarding, there were no gate agents there to even open the door from the jetway. They needed to be tracked down so that disembarking passengers could enter the terminal and we could board the aircraft. We did not take off until almost 2:45am, and I repeatedly nearly fell asleep driving back from Boston as the sun was coming up that morning. My girlfriend and I were quite lucky to be alive when we finally made it home at 7:30am, and I hope no other passengers suffered any traffic accidents that morning, since I know many traveled distances at least as long as ours in order to enjoy a direct flight to their vacation spot.

I am of the opinion that an airline should meet a minimum standard to provide at least two of the following three services to every passenger who travels with them: low fares, reliability, and comfort. If you want a low fare and reliability, you should have a reasonable expectation to forgo some of the more widely-accepted comforts. If you want comfort and reliability, you should expect to pay more for that experience. But passengers should not have to expect to give up all comforts AND the expectation of arriving at their destination within a reasonable amount of time. Ben Baldanza seems to believe that the low fare is all anyone cares about, though, and that gives his company carte blanche to screw passengers over every which way to Sunday.

And perhaps Baldanza is right. Maybe there is a sucker born every minute, new rubes who will fail to heed the warnings and put their vacations in the hands of his over-booked, understaffed, and under-equipped airline. But maybe one day soon he'll run out of suckers. Maybe in a world of social media and efforts to hold corporations like Spirit accountable people will realize it is well worth the extra $50-100 to fly a reputable airline, and that maybe an hour-long layover in Philadelphia or Charlotte is better than a five-hour delay in Boston.

Or better yet, maybe someday soon Spirit's board of executives and shareholders will realize that travelers really do care about more than low fares. That if they don't shape up their now-mighty share price will collapse as passengers begin actively avoiding their dollar store of the skies, and they'll go the way of American TransAir, PanAm and Eastern Airlines gone and forgotten by all, save those thousands whose vacations were ruined by a company who placed revenue ahead of responsibility. And on that day, hopefully Ben Baldanza will find himself the "former-CEO" of Spirit Airlines, and an incredibly tarnished brand can begin down the path of achieving respectability in a market led by companies that care about building a dedicated customer base.

Until that day, however, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to ever fly with Spirit. Fly another carrier. Drive. Take a bus. Heck, ride a bike or walk. You'll probably arrive at the same time as Spirit's plane, and even with the blisters on your feet you may end up being even more comfortable when you get there. But even if they offer to pay you, do not fly with Spirit. Ever. If you do, you'll probably regret it.

When I got home I immediately filed a claim...following their instructions to a "T." 6 weeks later, my luggage is still missing. On top of that, every time I call the number provided by the employee at the airport, it goes straight to voice mail... On top of THAT...the voice mail is full and can't accept messages. What am I to do? I have already spent close to $1,000 since this mishap replacing my glasses, retainer, perfume, make-up, and other necessities. Needless to say there is more to replace, but I can't afford it right now. I'd be happy with an apology and a few hundred dollars.

I am not looking to gain from this unfortunate experience. I know by now that even if they compensate me at all, it will not cover what I have already spent. If anything, I hope this is a lesson to others... NEVER fly Spirit! Not only are they negligent....they simply don't care! BOYCOTT THIS AIRLINE! You are better off paying $100 more to fly an airline where you can actually talk to a human when you call. Remember...6 weeks, claim filed properly, no one to contact, and no one contacting me. NIGHTMARE come true!

This makes me think, without a doubt, that one of the airline attendants stole my glasses. What nerve! The glasses alone put me $400 dollars in the hole along with the cost of a $45 dollar cab ride, $65 dollar hotel room and a day’s worth of headaches with buses, walking, and trying to find a place on Sunday that has an optometrist to prescribe new eye glasses. Complaining to Spirit Airlines will likely not solve anything so the least that I can do is to let others be aware that theft can and will happen on a flight. I never would have imagined that someone would steal prescription eye glasses on a flight. Never again Spirit Airlines.

What a miserable, ridiculous airline. Please do not fly with them, it is insane. No airline does not let you carry on a small bag with wheels... Never ever again will I fly with them. On top of this, a family of four who had to attend a funeral this evening in Dallas was also denied access to the plane... They were trying to find another airline and I pray they did. Never have I seen such rude counter people at check in... or any airline not willing to at least talk to a customer about their complaints. NEVER EVER FLY THEM!!!!!

Out of the three of us that missed the flight, the manager (Taneka) did one of us a seat on United and refunded some of her money. The only difference between her, myself and the other person is that the lady paid $670 for a last minute ticket. I asked to speak with her manager and only got another underpaid supervisor by the name of Kyle who was helpless and confirmed my options were to be on standby for Spirit or pay $760 to fly United; also no refund of the existing ticket.

I didn't make it to DTW (Detroit) until midnight just to learn my luggage was missing. I had to file a claim and call them every day to check status (they won't call you). Today is day 6. I've been given the phone number 877-888-5926 ext 7004. This is the number to contact for luggage missing 5 days or longer. When you call this number, it is a recording that doesn't allow you to leave a voice message because the voice mail is full and then it loops you back to the main menu. The claim form requires receipts for everything that was in the luggage as if I would have receipts for everything. They claim that they will reimburse you for expenses incurred during time luggage lost. I will post a follow up on that.

Spirit is ghetto. I have yet to be called once with anyone stating they are looking for my bags. They have not refunded the $70 I paid to check 2 bags in ($35 each way) and here it is day 6. On my way home the flight was supposed to leave at 2 pm, but it was a 3-hour delay and the only way I found out was because I waited to print my pass on the day of. Everyone else at the airport was pissed because they never received any notification and had to sit around 3 hours because of this imbecile cipher of an airline company. I'd pay triple the cost of a ticket before flying with them again. Take your own water and snack on the plane because they charge for everything. It may be a charge to use the restroom...not sure I didn't check.

We finally arrive in Dallas, and I suddenly find there are close to 25 people flying on to Portland and after frantically running to the gate, there's no one there... no attendant, no plane... and the reader board says the flights on time. We're at least 20 minutes before the scheduled take off. We're all standing there, not knowing what to do. Finally, another traveler calls Spirit and is informed there's a 6-hour delay. So, we all take off to eat, because Spirit doesn't give you anything on the flight, unless you're willing to pay for the yucky snacks they're selling. So, now we're all off at the various restaurants in the airport to suddenly hear, the flights been moved to only a 2-hour delay and they bumped the flight to San Francisco and cancelled a bunch of travelers on this one. It was completely disorganized, and not once did anyone apologize or even offer us complimentary water for the continued service failures. Also, want to mention, seats do not recline. If you're cold, you have to purchase a blanket to use.

Another agent for Spirit Airlines came up and claimed she was a manager and that we needed to move forward and did we want the ticket for 4 days later. My travel partner and I could not accept that as an option. We asked about standby and how come we weren't allowed to get our boarding passes since the flight wasn't scheduled to leave yet. The agent was completely rude and disrespectful, she said we either move on or forfeit our flight. Security was called on us and she told us both (even though I was the only one speaking) that we forfeited our flight. Security came up and was very pleasant and he couldn't understand why we were having such issues. Bottom line is they kept our funds, forfeited our flight and offered no assistance. The disrespect and humiliation we felt was insane. They kept us funds and offered ZERO assistance. I WILL NEVER FLY SPIRIT. I called their customer service and was advised they had no corporate office.

I joined the middle lane and I had just 3 people ahead of me so I figured it couldn't be that bad seeing that the other line (bags under 40 lbs) had about 20 people already in. The v-booking line was empty. The agents were so slow it looked like they were acting out a script. Even harder to swallow was the fact that the other lane (under 40 lbs) had 4 agents attending to them while we had to share 2 agents with the v-booking lane. In less than 20 minutes the lines were really long. I watched the under 40 line scale through the agents while my lane did not move. I had spent almost 30 minutes and we hadn't moved.

Meanwhile people who had walked in 30 minutes after I did were now being attended to n the other lane. To make matters worse, v-booking customers came in the empty line and took up the agents that opened up eventually for my lane. We stood there in amazement and called out to the other agents walking around to no avail. I eventually got to the counter and my flight was to depart in 10 minutes. I was blatantly told in the most unfriendly manner that I could not get on the flight and that they were not about to take any blame for anything. Those were his words and he never said anything else while he typed away. I was basically ranting to a statue who did not care about what I had to say.

After about 10 minutes of silence from him doing God knows what on the computer, he tells me he has put me on a flight to arrive at my destination 11pm the next day. I walk away in anger and tell him that the airline needed to be shut down! I walk around and talk to some other people about what just happened and eventually walk back to know who the station manager was, only to figure out it was the same guy who checked me in. I decide to file a complaint about him and I get on the internet and see how the CEO of the company feels about customer service and complaints and I figure it's not even worth the effort.

Never again will I book a flight using this airline and I will be sure to spread the word everywhere I go. Please people, stay away from this airline. Get on Fb and like the boycott page. Let's put these guys out of business... This is unacceptable! OAN - Do you know that you will be charged $100 for a carry-on? What a joke!

Spirit issued us a $50 credit voucher, which we will most definitely never, ever use! We won't fly Spirit again! They have terrible service, and this is the second (and last) time we have experienced similar problems with them! As a side note, and not as importantly, people might want to know that they don't give out any snacks or drinks for free - not a morsel, nor a drop of water. So if you dare to fly with them, be prepared! Otherwise, you will be charged a minimum of $3 for a drink or snack.

I told her to leave me alone, and I would pay the $100 if someone says something. She then asked to see my boarding pass for a third time. I have two little girls. We carried on 4 bags and a bag that is my purse. We were not asked a single question about the bags on the way to Fort Lauderdale. As I approached the gate, they informed us that our flight has been delayed by 2.5 hours. Needless to say, I woke up with my kids at 4:30am to catch the original flight time of 7am. I am still sitting here waiting to catch my flight home. I will never fly Spirit again.

This makes 3 flights in a row that I have been delayed at least 2 hours to travel home. The terminal is absolute chaos. There appears to be no managers in helping positions; the staff here seems rattled. I have heard that one flight had birds fly into an engine and another flight is waiting for an international flight to disembark. I just spoke to a couple who have been waiting 4.5 hours to get to Atlanta. What a joke. I hope this airline goes belly-up in the near future.

Back to the gate after the 5-hour delay for the 9:30pm departure now delayed to 9:45. The announcement to LAS passengers and those with connections to San Diego was, "For those of you going to Las Vegas, we will be boarding in 10 minutes. For those of you with connections to San Diego, we can get you to Las Vegas, but after that, you'll have to figure it out." I have never experienced such pathetic, poor customer service in my life. The employees at the gate were apathetic, unresponsive and rude. It seemed as if they relished in making passengers miserable. I finally arrived in LAS at 1:00am (3am Chicago time). My family came to pick me up to save me a $60 cab ride to Henderson, NV. Never again. I don't have a clue how these people stay in business. Only compliment was to the flight crew. They were at least pleasant.

The staff at the departure gates was undoubtedly tired of dealing with frustrated customers, and they were dismissive and expressionless. I pity them for ending up in such binds, presumably frequently, and hope they all get more rewarding jobs soon. For me, this was and will be my first and only travel with Spirit Airlines. And in the end, the ticket was more than I usually pay for that destination and I even had to pay extra for a carry-on piece of luggage because they have "de-bundled" aspects of flight, including (of course) food and luggage. In the end, it cost more than other airlines have in the past, their lateness exceeded the length of the flights, and the staff was apathetic. Never again.

For about 12 of us that day, June 30th, 2013, our day began with our 4:05 p.m. flight being delayed due to weather - Understandable. But when we tried to rebook, because it looked like our connection in Ft. Lauderdale, FL to Baltimore, due to leave at 8:15 p.m., we were told "Spirit's next possible flight was available on July 4th. There was no room on any other flights before! We had work and families to get back to. There was no recompense for inconvenience, except, "Sorry, that is all we can do," no help after spending hundreds of dollars, being 'fee-ed' to death and no help booking on another airline. We were stuck, and angry.

The Spirit rep, took it upon herself to remove another woman and her daughter and me from the flight, without our knowledge, and even though we had boarding passes for our flight, if by some chance we were able to make it to our connection, we would find, in Ft. Lauderdale that we had been bumped and others put in our place!! We never asked to be bumped!! We understood, after repeating her instructions, to proceed on our flight from Cancun to Ft. Lauderdale and hope to make our connection.

Upon arriving in Ft. Lauderdale, we were given NO information on the condition of our connection, whether it was still docked, or gone or what. Because we landed after 8:30 p.m. we hoped it might still be there. There were dozens of us, running through immigration, to run again and get to our bags, to get through customs, then run upstairs to recheck our bags, and run down to our gate to see if the plane was still there, with all the delays in lines and stressful time taken in the process. When we got to the gate, we found the plane, due to take off at 8:15 p.m. was delayed to 11:50 p.m. We were happy that at least we would be able to get home rather than spend four days in Florida, or have to rent a car to drive over 13 hours to get home, or find another airline at the last minute for hundreds of dollars, or :try standby" on overbooked flights.

Finally after midnight, nearer to 12:30 a.m., we stood in line with our boarding passes and a lady and her daughter were pulled aside, and then I was pulled aside for not being on the list of passengers!! What??!! You have to be kidding me?! Nope, it was true. Some idiot somewhere (in Cancun?) had removed us. We did not ask for this!! Now what?! We were kept waiting, while all, and I mean all of the other passengers were boarded. Not once were we reassured they would try to get us on. The staff were only irritated and silent with our questions. Here we were, thinking we had made it.... waiting and running and worrying for hours and hours, and now it was looking like we were going to be stuck and unable to get home to work and family.

An announcement was made for "6 volunteers" to be given airline tickets if they would give up their seats. There were 3 that did. Why? It was to make room for the three of us that had been bumped without our permission! We got on the plane, in different seats (I was put by the window, which I never choose). I was given a sour look by the Rep who was taking boarding passes, and given a paper to board, and my original pass was crumpled and thrown away by him as well. I had another Confirmation of my flight and the cost to prove my original info, but not my original boarding pass with my original seat that was given, 4D. We left later, and arrived in Baltimore at 3:30 a.m.

I am exhausted, but home. I will NEVER fly Spirit again. I only did because my kids were trying to help me by paying for my flights. I hope you, reading this, will research the complaints from people for this cut rate airline that cares only for their "bottom line", not customers or decent service. Thanks for listening.

The refund took almost a week to be credited to my bank account. They told us there is nothing they can do to help us to get another flight with a different airline, no hotel, no nothing. Three days after, we found a flight from Orlando to PR that cost me a lot of money. I missed 3 days of my job and after all these indignities, I can tell you that these clowns are the worst of the worst. No wonder SKYTRAX gave them a 2-star evaluation. Don't fly with these clowns. Help others to take them out of business. Respect yourself. DON'T FLY SPIRIT AIRLINES.

During this time, the Spirit agent was announcing that our plane was on the ground but that both of the two gates Spirit had were occupied, and that as soon as one opened up, our plane would be arriving. At 10:00, our plane rolled up to the gate, and cleaning or whatever began, at 11:20, the door opened. Everyone lined up and started getting their tickets ready, when the agent announced that the flight was cancelled. Long story short, we were re-booked to a 7am flight that had a 5-hour layover at Myrtle Beach, SC. I have a four-year old, so my husband and I needed a hotel. We called around and we found a relatively cheap place that had a shuttle. We went off to catch the shuttle immediately and had to walk a half an hour, past all the other terminals to someplace called Door 1 in hot and humid weather, 12am at night, sirens blaring, and hungry because all the restaurants had already closed.

After this terrible walk, we couldn't find the shuttle. It was now around 12:30 and our child was complaining that his legs were hurting. We saw the Hilton across the street and decided to see if they had a room, even though it might be expensive, it was the most logical choice. The nice young lady at the desk told us that every single room was booked, all 840 of them. Thoroughly frustrated, we decided that we had to go back to the terminal and try to get our child to sleep there. So we trudged back for another 30 minutes. We reached the Spirit vestibule by 1:15. We figured that we should just check our bags again. So after we changed clothes in the bathroom, we tried. Spirit reps told us that they couldn't do anything until the ticketing opened up at 3am. We were exhausted and thoroughly uncomfortable at this point so all three of us caught about an hour long nap and then sprang to life again once the gate opened up.

We all added ourselves to the lines again, which were already long with all of the people whose flights were cancelled last night. We did the whole thing all over again, and ended up not even landing at La Guardia until 4pm. We found our ride by 5pm and then sat in rush hour traffic for another hour and a half. We didn't even get home until 7:30. Our son's preschool graduation was the next day, but due to our utter exhaustion, we overslept. I had to call the school to tell them that he couldn't attend, and he missed his opportunity to participate in this very special event. This was all because of the Spirit experience. These folks have earned their reputation for poor service and we will never ever fly Spirit again. They just don't care about their customers.

The flight was delayed both ways. For the return flight, only after boarding was supposed to ensue were we told that our flight would be delayed 2 hours because the flight crew was still in Denver, not because of weather but due to them doubling up on manpower... and once the crew did arrive, they were clueless. My husband missed worked due to this delay!! The airport had closed and all of the food courts shut down and you would not even give complimentary cups of water to people who were going to be on a cramped 5-hour flight? Speaking of cramped, the seating space is ridiculous for anyone over 5'2" and the seats do not recline unless you are in the front row, which makes for an extremely uncomfortable flight after about an hour and a half. The only people at the airport were those lying on the floors waiting on delayed Spirit Airline flights.

Spirit really needs to rethink some things...

Update: Thank goodness I was bright enough to walk up to the customer service desk and ask if Flight NK 174 was still scheduled to depart at 5:20 pm. The very incompetent desk attendants let me know that the flight had been delayed again until 7 pm. At this point, this was beyond ridiculous. How your company stays in business with this level of terrible service is beyond me. These flight delays have been a complete inconvenience. I was scheduled to be on call at 10 pm. However, due to the lack of communication and service your customer service representatives and company displayed, I will not make it in time to assist my patients. Thank you for wasting my day. I would never spend a dime on Spirit Airlines. You have lost me as a customer and I will make sure you lose my family, friends and colleagues as well. No one should ever deal with this level of horrid service.

So I spent 2 hours on the phone trying to reach someone with a pulse. Finally, after getting routed around and hung up on, I reached someone. I had to spend an additional $140.00 on luggage which sucked but, oh well, I was still on a high from the great week in Orlando. We get to the Spirit Air terminal three hours early to check our luggage in. The front desk lady says, "Oh, wait a minute; we have a problem. Apparently, a bird hit the plane, so they have to wash down the plane, check the turbines for damage so the flight is delayed for 4 hours." They must use the bird excuse a lot after reading these posts. She hands us our tickets and says, "Have a nice trip."

I stopped and said, "Wait, the delay is going to cause us to miss our connecting flight from O'hare to Minneapolis." She says, "The next flight we have to Minneapolis is on Tuesday." Hello!! This is Saturday and we have a ride waiting for us in Minneapolis later that night. She says, "Well, I can cancel your connecting flight and you can rebook on another airline." My wife and I are frantically looking on cheap air for flights. Then I started getting pissed and said, "Why can't you put us on another airline?" "I'm sorry; we can't do that," she says, "This is an act of god and out of our control."

I know why they can't use another airline; it's because no other airline wants to be affiliated with such a piss poor company like Spirit Airlines. Anyway, we decided to cancel our connecting flight from Chicago to Minneapolis before we lose out on those tickets altogether. We have jobs, limited leave and are in line frantically trying to find an alternative way to Minneapolis. Luckily, they did refund our money for that portion of the flight. Our flight kept getting delayed every hour and we finally left the ground at 8 pm. We finally got to Chicago in one piece, thank god, but had to rent a car and drive through the night to Minneapolis.

I spent months planning our trip, saving money and my family will never forget the chaos that Spirit Airlines caused us on our flight back. Not once did these clowns even offer a free food voucher, kids' snack pack or water, discount on another flight. If any CEOs of the company ever read these posts, get out of the airline game. You are the most pathetic airline in the history of airlines. In closing, tell your friends to avoid Spirit Airlines at all cost.

This was not true, nor did it make any sense that Orbitz would cancel my return flight, and if I was recorded as not being on the outbound flight, why was my checked bag allowed to fly without me (supposedly) on board? When I logged in to Orbitz, the return flight still showed on my itinerary, no changes had been made, nor did I receive an email alert from Orbitz, which I would have received had they truly canceled my reservation on the return flight.

I called Orbitz, who then called Spirit. Eventually, I was rebooked on my flight, but in all, it took me five hours to get it straightened out. I had to cancel all of my plans on the last day of my vacation. There was no apology, nor was there any admission of the cause of the problem. Now I'd like to take it up with Spirit, but my only option is to wait on hold for three hours - otherwise, I have no recourse. It is unacceptable for an airline to cancel a paid reservation and assign blame to a third party.

Our return flight yesterday proved to be more of the same. Upon checking in, we were asked if we'd be willing to fly to Miami instead of Ft. Lauderdale. When I asked why, I was told that the plane that we were to leave on was going to be late getting into St. Thomas and that there were adverse winds. Well, I guess nobody was willing to fly into Miami instead of Ft. Lauderdale because our plane was almost full! I had to pay extra baggage fees because going our bag was 42 lbs, coming back it weighed 6 lbs more even though we purposely took things out. I think someone should check out their scales. There seems to be total confusion at this airline, changes are made on a whim and travelers are held hostage. This airline is unacceptable.

To make matters worse, on the way back from Costa Rica, THE SAME THING HAPPENED AGAIN (?) in Fort Lauderdale. We were stuck in that airport for 6 hrs (until 1 am in the morning). From the three-ring circus at the counter to get boarding passes to the rude people you deal with at Spirit, it was my worse flying exp. ever and I fly a lot. If you can't book another airline... walk, run, hitch a ride or spend the extra 500 dollars to fly with a real airline. It makes me wonder about maintenance on these planes. It was funny that the only flights delayed on the monitor were ALL Spirit flights. Nobody could tell us why these flights were delayed either. I will never fly Spirit again, and will tell as many people as possible about their Podunk operation.

In the end, I asked the gate agent if I should carry on the bag since it was so close to departure and he said it would be wise. In the venture of being expeditious, I asked how I would get a refund for the checked bag fee and he said to call for the refund and off I went. This did make me late to the TSA checkpoint and had it not been for some kind travelers who let me jump into the line at the front, I would have missed the flight. Funny thing was, I showed at the gate which was completely abandoned. Clueless, I looked around and found the flight at a different gate in the process of boarding, yet I left the gate agent only 10 minutes prior. They are not just inefficient but unorganized.

Interesting also, as I boarded the aircraft at the gate, it still indicated "On Time" 10 minutes past the boarding time. We finally made it into the air 40 minutes later and landed 50 minutes later than scheduled. Needless to say, the airline would not refund me the $30 for my checked bag as "It is policy." They did provide a $30 voucher for a future flight to be booked within the next 60 days and the rude response from the supervisor was that is the best that can be done. In the end, the employees must execute the policy of the company or risk their jobs. I am certain these policies are not made for the consumer, the traveler or the businessman. Highest recommendation is to AVOID this company for air travel. There is no flexibility in their system and I even mentioned to the "supervisor" on the phone that we are discussing $30 and asked if this was worth it after waiting for 1 hour 10 minutes for a customer service representative and then 10 minutes for a supervisor. BUYER BEWARE. AVOID this company if flexibility and predictable travel is sought.

We lost out on time from our vacation and the money we spent on a room for one night. Then the flight home was delayed twice due to a piece from the wing of aircraft breaking off. We also found out that for some of the people that were booked on the same flight to Las Vegas, they moved them to a different airline... How nice of them to pick and choose. Everyone that we spoke to from the airline was rude and inconsiderate. And yes, they are cheap but not after all the extra fees for EVERYTHING they added. Had I known anything about this airline before booking my vacation, I would have paid the little extra and gone with Southwest or Delta. Never again will I or my family fly Spirit!!! I highly suggest to anyone to say away from this airline. If you look at BBB website, you will see that they have over 2,000 complaints against them in just 3 years.

No one else was waiting in line. There were four of us girls traveling. We re-weighed the suitcase and it's okay now but the pissy agent decides to screw with us now and tags her luggage as late check in. We were there at 1 and flight was not until 2. So now, we are panicking that flight changed because she kept saying we are late and the plane was departing soon so we run through security, got to our gate and sat there for 25 minutes waiting to get on the plane which was leaving on time as planned. Friggin' witch! Oh and I decided to buy a carry-on bag. Instead of paying another $45, I would rather get a new bag. Guess what, it had wheels too and no one had a problem with the bag so WTF with SPIRIT? Yes, no, yes, no, nothing is ever clear.

This airline will go UNDER if they don't do something about their customer service. I only tried it because it was new in the Portland, Oregon area. I almost feel like I have been raped of my time and energy dealing with Spirit. I will tell everyone I know...to tell everyone they know NEVER, EVER, EVER fly Spirit. They would have a more comfortable and enjoyable ride if they drove to where they were going; I don't care how long it would take!

I waited several weeks and no letter. I sent them an email and phone call. They said they had just sent it out to the Miami address that they refused in the first place, so I waited again and no letter. I called again. Now we are are 6 months. They returned the call and I was instructed to send an email requesting they email a copy of the letter. I waited again after a couple of weeks. They finally sent the email denying my claim. I have since requested from them what they need to process my claim. They sent me an email stating that I had the right to contact any agency I wanted to try to settle my claim. I live in Costa Rica now.

I am looking at a trip to Florida to file a small claims against them and a return trip to go to court. Not to mention dragging my 74-year-old mother to Florida from Tennessee as a witness that I did indeed pack up the said contents of the package. It's not the trip. It's also the memory of my late father and the fishing trip that she was on when the fishes were caught by my father. She just wanted me to have the mounts in my home in Costa Rica.

In the end, even with all the right paperwork filed with Spirit, they have never once acknowledged losing my package. How is it that people can do business like this and do it on a daily basis. They want me to trust them with my life by flying with them, but that's all they have to offer. So it makes me wonder how much my life is worth to them.

After being on the phone for over an hour, they finally agreed to send us an e-mail showing a cancellation (they couldn't find the original e-mail they supposedly sent me) and a promise that a credit will show up on our credit card within 24 hours. They are reimbursing us minus the membership fee. We were told that it was best to sign up for the membership to save on luggage cost. Now that they cancelled our reservation, they are refusing to reimburse us for the membership because it is non-refundable.

I asked for a manager and they said the manager doesn’t have time for this complaint and they hang up the phone. I tried to get help. I've been calling everywhere and no one will help me... This is the worst company. I will never travel with this company and I will never recommend this company to anyone. People, do not use this airline! They will take your money and you won't receive what they promise you. So don't believe what they offer you!

On our return trip, which left Costa Rica at 1AM, we sat and idled on the runway for approximately 30-40 minutes after our scheduled departure time. Although we made up some of that time in the air, we idled again when we landed because our gate was not available. The connecting flights were both tight to begin with - approximately 50 minutes after we were due to land. We disembarked from the plane 15 minutes before our connections were due to leave. Since we still had to go through immigration, go collect our bags, go through customs and re-check our bags, all of which took over an hour and a half, they did not bother to try and rush us through immigration.

When we got to the gate, finally, we were given $7 breakfast vouchers to use at the airport. I went upstairs and got a yogurt and a coffee. I still had to put some cash in. She was shuttled from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa and I was shuttled to Fort Meyers for a later connecting flight, arriving home more than 8 hours later than planned. I overheard that at least 35 people on our flight missed their connection. It was an awful way to end our vacation and it was handled with a very matter of fact, "You're lucky we got you on another flight today" attitude, to add insult to injury.

Perhaps if the situation was handled with some understanding, it wouldn't feel so frustrating even a month later. However, the airline seemed to be completely disorganized and have a total disregard for their travelers. I will certainly never fly this airline again. I will discourage anyone I know from traveling with them as well.

The desk agents would only complain about how they had been there since the day before. Why do I care? That is not my problem that Spirit treats their employees badly. They would only offer to refund the flight. I ended up having to go from BWI to IAD on a $140 shuttle, for a different, more expensive flight on United (with much better customer service, I must say). The shuttle should have at least been covered. Never flying with Spirit again.

I requested for an alternative flight to Santa Domingo so that I can fly to Port-au-Prince on our next available flight or I can catch a bus from Santa Domingo to Port-au-Prince. The lady on the desk was helpful but she went and consulted her supervisor for she said flying to Santa Domingo requires a return ticket if I don't have a residence visa of DR. It was the attitude of the supervisor which annoyed me; she refused to speak. I was trying to explain to her that I don't intend to stay at DR and my flight was flying to Port-au-Prince. Through the agent, she told me I can be accommodated if I produced a flight ticket from DR to PAP. Since it cannot be done in the last moment, I offered I can book a bus ticket online from DR to PAP - she refused. She said it was DR government requirement. I have travelled twice to DR, twice from PAP, but I was never asked to submit a return ticket earlier.

My wife came to DR on United Airlines on May 15th via Miami and booked her one way ticket last year, she was never told that she was required a return ticket to visit DR. It was only in the last one month that she booked her ticket from DR. I approached three agents/desk officers and all of them went to the supervisor who never showed up. I tried to explain that I am going to PAP and DR is just a transit, and I was informed that she said if I have to use DR as transit for PAP; I should have a return ticket from PAP to Miami to complete the loop. I simply don't know what the logic behind it is. After showing everything that I worked in Haiti and have an official passport from my country, she refused to speak to me. She made me feel that the return ticket requirement to travel to DR is Spirit Airlines requirement and not the requirement of DR government.

I am entering DR for the third time and each time my passport was checked and stamped. And when I visited US, I flew in Spirit Airlines from SDQ to Miami on May 18th and at that time my passport was again checked and stamped. Now if I want to use DR as a transit to PAP, does Spirit Airlines want me to buy a return ticket and sacrifice the return ticket since from DR I will join my office in PAP?

On 5/26/13, I called Spirit to cancel the ticket. They informed me that I could not, since the original ticket had been purchased in April, and add-ons to itineraries could only be cancelled the day after the ORIGINAL itinerary was made. After asking why this information was not given to me in Ft. Lauderdale, the representative hung up. It's sad that this company lied to squeeze some extra money out of me. Simply put, don't let it happen to you. Fly with a better airline. Along those lines, ANY airline is better.

There is no valid reason or justification to charge $100 at the gate, especially since you carry it on yourself anyway, other than to screw the passenger at the gate as they have no choice but to pay the fee. The service at the gate is unremarkable/poor; they are not helpful nor overly service oriented other than to get you on/off the plane. They also charge you for any drinks you have on the plane, including water, soda and juice. There is no flight magazine. There was a bachelor party group on the plane that complained that they ran out of Jack Daniels after three bottles, and the plane had run out of all liquor after only a third of the plane had been served. I told my story to others who have had similar poor experiences. Everyone should be warned and not patronize this company.

Initially, we ignored the message, but after the 9th-10th request, we went to the desk to inquire if the offer was really as good as it sounded and were reassured that not only would we receive a voucher for a free flight, but a hotel room close to the airport, meal voucher and transportation to and from the airport. We were also assured that our suitcases would be available. After much discussion with the Spirit Airlines staff, we decided to avail of the offer which was our mistake. We were issued the vouchers and guided to collect our luggage! Well, we would have collected our luggage except it was not available! But in great Spirit fashion, your ground crew did not care! "Oh well, Mr. **, sorry about that. We were now faced with 10-hour wait and no personal items." A cab fare and $150 later spent at Walmart, we finally had what we needed to spend the waiting time comfortably before our return to the airport for the 1am flight.

It would take too long to explain to you the ridiculous screening undertaken by Spirit before boarding the flight, not TSA, not security, but Spirit Airlines and from what we could see the main purpose of the exercise was to ensure passengers had no drinks or food so they would be forced to spend more money with your airline on board. I am surprised at this stage you don't charge for water or using the restroom but I'm sure this day is coming and fast! Once home, we called Spirit to make our free round trip booking to anywhere that Spirit flies only to be told that the dates we wanted to fly were blackout dates! Imagine our surprise when we heard this as this had not been part of any discussion or information provided by any Spirit staff member in San Jose. We waited a few weeks and called again to meet our booking deadline, and spoke with customer service on 5-20-13 for over 1 hour and 30 minutes to try and get a schedule a flight to use our free voucher

I provided the customer service representative with over 9 different options as far in the future as February 2014 to try and find dates that we could fly. After almost an hour, he finally found some dates (not the dates we wanted to fly) and we secured the times. When it came to the final booking, your customer service representative advised we would have to pay $468 for the booking! I inquired why do we have to pay this amount and we were advised it was a free round trip ticket to anywhere Spirit flies. This airline needs to not lie to their consumers.

As an infuriating prelude, it took me over three hours (not an exaggeration) to get hold of a human being just to combine my miles onto one account (they issued the credit card miles with a separate Free Spirit number). Spirit wants you to do everything online but have no online option for merging miles (or for solving other simple problems), and all their phone numbers tell you to go online or ask for flight numbers, etc., with no option to speak to a human and hang up on you after you waste your time listening to multiple options/messages that don't apply to your problem.

There is no online help or chat, either. GetHuman.com said call 801-401-2220 and press 0, then 2, 5, 7, and 3 (it took 3 tries but it worked). After 19 minutes on hold, I finally got a reservations "specialist" who told me I had to call the Free Spirit Center at 801-401-2210 and press option 7, then 3, 3 again, enter my phone number, then select "Change Name" or "Update Contact Info". I had already gone through all these options on my own 2 or 3 times and then the system hung up on me so he offered to hook me directly to a human but when the phone picked up, it was the same option menu!

I can't remember ever being so mad, but being a **, I pressed on. After hold times of 13 and 17 minutes, my third "specialist", named Al (had to ask him 3 times because of the thick accent) actually connected me to another human (also named Al - what are the odds?) who solved my problem! And he gave me a phone number for the future guaranteed - he insisted repeatedly - to be answered by a human. You guessed it: 801-401-2220. He didn't have much of a personality, so maybe it sounds human to him.

And what's with the 801 phone numbers? All the 800 numbers have recordings giving you an 801 number (801-401-2200, 801-401-2210, 801-401-2220, etc.) - "To give you more options and serve you better". I thought maybe it's a new toll-free exchange, like 866, but it turns out it's an area code in Utah - which makes sense since Spirit is based in Miramar, Florida and the call center is in India. After 18 calls and over an hour of hold time total just to solve my simple problem, I can venture a guess that Spirit has discovered a new source of revenue in the form of a cut from the phone company.

Until today, I actually liked Spirit because they had low fares and were upfront about added costs.

Not even considering, he sent my wife and our 7-month old baby back in the last row and gave our exit row seats to somebody randomly. He did not even consider keeping us closely together. Nobody (supervisor) bothered to stop him. He was even threatening us by saying that we were creating a scene there. I am very disappointed and would like to complain about the Spirit Airlines and Bill for their nasty behavior. I am not after the extra money ($200.00) that I lost, but I do not want to leave this like this. Moreover, Spirit Airlines has the worst reviews in all the forums, etc. Can I get some to help? Whom do I need to complain to about this matter?

The seats were crampy and there was no leg space at all. They charge for everything, including a glass of water. There’s no customer service at all. In our flight, the AC was not working and there were limited water resources. They have the worst customer service. I wanted to speak to a customer service agent, and I waited for 45 to 50 minutes five times and they just hung up the call.

We again made it out to the runway and were told we had to return to the gate as there was an issue with the braking system. Passengers became very upset (not unruly or out of line) at this point and Spirit had the DIA police waiting at the gate when we returned. The supervisor came over the intercom. Several of the passengers could not hear and he was asked to speak up. He told us, "This is as loud as it gets, folks." He was non-apologetic as were all of the Spirit employees. They were actually intimidating toward us, telling us to be quiet and not cause trouble. The employees consistently had the attitude that the passengers were out of line. We were given a $7 food voucher (only after asking) in the 12 hours we spent at the airport. My companion and I had serious reservations about the safety of the plane and decided to cancel our flight and book another.

We were given our refund and assured that our bags would be taken off the plane and would arrive at carousel 5. When we and several other passengers who had cancelled their flights were waiting for our bags, a Spirit employee came up and informed us that our bags were on the way to Las Vegas and wouldn’t be back until 11:45 the next morning. Many of us live hours away from the airport and could not go home and come back the next morning. When we asked about hotel vouchers, we were told no vouchers would be issued. The employees were extremely arrogant and indifferent toward our complaints, treating us as if we were in the wrong. We were hesitant to book another flight as our bags would be headed back to Denver.

When we were still in the airport trying to figure out what to do, we noticed the Spirit Airlines ticketing had a line of people. It turns out the flight went out again and came back to the gate for a mechanical problem. The flight was finally cancelled. We did get our luggage back that evening. Then we felt safe booking another flight but by that time, the seats were full as they were taken by other passengers from the Spirit flight. We booked our own hotel room as it was 10pm by the time we left the airport. We saw another passenger at the hotel. He said Spirit did get him on a flight out in the morning with Frontier however wouldn’t give him a hotel voucher. The Frontier employee was very sympathetic and gave him a hotel voucher. Now, that is customer service.

When we called Spirit the next morning, we were told we would be issued a $50 voucher to fly with Spirit again but they could do nothing more for us. I am a nurse at Children’s Hospital and a single mom. It is very rare for me to get time away to go somewhere for R&R. I had been looking forward to this trip for two mos. Thanks to Spirit Airlines, my rare 4-day weekend away was ruined. The arrogance and indifference displayed by the Spirit employees was appalling. I have never, in my 48 years, experienced such poor customer service.

Another 10 minutes went by and then they told us we had to go back to the terminal. As we were going back to the terminal, the other Spirit flight had been boarded and passed us on the other runway. I feel that they deliberately boarded us on the plane to get us out of the way so we would not complain any further about the delay. We got back to the terminal and were told it would now be 8:30 pm before we took off. At 7:30, an announcement came on that they were ready to board the flight. Once again, we boarded and went out to the tarmac, only to continue to have brake problems. We had to go back to the terminal, at which point they told us the flight was cancelled. We were never offered anything to eat or drink, not even water, nor food vouchers. The staff was not only rude, they were intimidating and threatening us to be quiet, not cause trouble and we better not be recording anything. We had to stand in line for over 3 hours to try to get on another airline (which they had never offered to do prior to this), or a refund.

Since we did not want to take any more chances with this airline, including getting stranded in another city, we took the refund, which won't be posted for 7-10 business days. All told, we spent more than 15 hours at the airport, wasted a vacation day, had to pay for parking, had to pay for a hotel room that we did not use and never received as much as an apology. I have never experienced such horrible treatment and customer service. In fact, the airline's total arrogance and indifference was shocking! We will be filing a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Then on the way back, I had the rudest flight attendant I have ever come across. They should be ashamed that they hire such rude and disgusting people. When I ordered something and didn't get my whole order, I buzzed the attendant. Another girl came back and I asked for the rest of my order. She went back to get it and told him that he missed it and he started yelling really loudly, "She didn't ask for that; I asked her and she said no." I was completely embarrassed and shocked. When I told the other attendant his attitude, she said, "Yes, I know. He can be like that," and then people in first class were complaining about his attitude.

I'm no diva. I certainly am aware you get what you pay for but this wasn't even close to being acceptable. I thought I was on a cargo plane with how filthy it was in the inside, with people's forehead marks on the seat ahead of them and duct tape holding the seats together. Oh guess what? I'm sick! Wow! That's a shocker with how disgusting it was. I am appalled, very, and I will never ever take one of their flights again, nor will I recommend anyone to take their flights.

Do yourself a favor and go with some other airline. Don't save the 50 bucks. Save your sanity. They should be renamed Ghetto Air.

Finally, I get an email from Spirit saying my ticket has expired and they will only give me a $10.00 voucher. I sent back an email but only got a stern email back from a Neeta in India sticking to the story that my ticket had expired and I am out of luck. This airline has terrible customer service and it’s all about trying to save money. I will never use them again. In the long run you are really not saving. Spirit is a low cost airline and I am sure they are not only cutting cost on customer service but on the maintenance, and using low end pilots at a cheap rate. Don’t fly them just because you think it’s cheap.

I then asked how much the credit would be and how much the other flight would be. But they couldn't tell me that either because they would have to cancel the other flight first and charge me for all of my fees first. So instead of taking the extra money to transfer names, they are going to have to open two seats. I did not cancel those tickets and did not book a new flight for the two new people because I will never give my money to Spirit again. I just don't understand why you wouldn't take the additional money and have happy customers!

After 45 minutes on the phone, I demanded to speak with the supervisor. After 30-minute wait, the supervisor told me that my flight was cancelled because I did not show up for the departure flight the day before. I told her that I called the day before to tell the customer rep that I was involved in a car accident on my way to the airport, and was therefore 5 minutes late. She told me that there is nothing Spirit could do as it is showing in the system that I cancelled the flight. I assured her that I did not cancel the flight as I was traveling at the time with another airline, therefore, it was impossible that I could have cancelled the flight. This was in contradiction with what I was previously told.

After 20 minutes on the phone with the supervisor, I was told that I could pay an additional $177 in order to make the return flight. I reminded the supervisor that I was told by a customer rep the last 45 minutes on the phone that the flight was full and that there was no available space. How come suddenly after there was an opening? I think my return seat was sold after I missed my departure flight. When trying to check-in for my return flight online, only my departure flight was showing? If my entire flight was cancelled, how come I was able to check-in for my departure flight two days after the fact? I paid $252 for a ticket and was unable to use it. I'm now paying another $177 extra.

I missed my flight to begin with. I won't be flying with Spirit again. This caused not only me but several people on the way to Fort Lauderdale to miss flights as well. They were telling people to step to the side to print out their boarding pass at the kiosk, but then the computer stopped working. When several people went up to tell the reservation agents to tell what had happened, they said, "Oh well, step back in line." The reservation agents were very rude to the foreigners as well.

If I were one of those foreigners, I would never come back to this country. In this case, the cheap flight matched the cheap customer services as far as Dallas/Fort Worth is concerned.

After 5 minutes, my husband told me to go up to the counter as another agent (Shayla #**) was pulling passengers for a Plattsburgh flight. It was 9:10 when she finished with the customer. We told her that we were afraid we wouldn't make our flight and handed her our passports. She ran one of them and told us we couldn't make it as their check-in ended at 9:05. I explained to her that we had been standing in line and that we spoke to an agent who said someone would be pulling us but never did. Her response was that it was the other employee's fault that she didn't pull us and bring us to the front when I initially spoke to her. I told her that wasn't my fault. Agent Shayla was very unprofessional and I could tell right away she didn't care.

I immediately asked for a supervisor in hopes that we would still make the flight. By this time, it was 9:15. Shayla walked to the end of the counter and had a 25-minute conversation with the supervisor before they both walked back to us. The supervisor (Cynthia #**) told us that there was nothing they would do. She continued to say that they could put us on the same flight the next night and would not put us in a hotel. I was very upset and explained to her that this wasn't our fault. We were on time and it was their employees that made the error. In addition, my one daughter had to get back to college and the other had HS. She was very brash and again, lacked customer service. We advised them that our flight to Niagara Falls, NY was never called for either.

My husband asked to speak with her manager. While waiting over 1 hour for the supervisor, there were dozens of irate customers that were experiencing the same thing as we were. Some passengers were told they would make the flight, only to find out when they went to leave that they couldn't. Some had their luggage taken and not able to board. One family was even looking for their 7-year-old son that they lost while escorting him to the gate. After an hour, the manager (Rosa ** #**) was as useful as the rest of her team. She indicated that now the only flight we would be able to make is on Wednesday. After much yelling, she did refund us a total of $830.56, but my family and I had to sleep at the Ft Lauderdale airport, pay $2,100 to fly Jetblue one way to get to Buffalo, pay for additional food and once we arrived at Buffalo, pay $80 for a taxi to get us to Niagara Falls, NY airport to retrieve our vehicles.

Needless to say we will never fly Spirit again. Their customer service is non-existent. We were told that that evening by 6PM, there were roughly 50+ customers that experienced the same thing as us. I'm sure they were overbooked and just kept bumping people. We did have travel insurance, but nobody wants to know anything.

There was absolutely no customer service and it was extremely rude! We called Spirit (very hard to get hold of anyone). They said, "We can't get you home till Friday," and it was only Tuesday. We rented a car and drove home, 21 hours. I contacted Customer Relations. Their response was, "Sorry for your problems. As always, we strive to have excellent customer service. Please read our link on arriving at airport procedures! Thank you very much for being a loyal customer." Really?! This is the worst airline ever! Buyers beware! They are very rude and their customer service is laughable! Book a different airline!

That's not all. I was on time for my flight that was departing to Ft Lauderdale. I received my boarding pass and went to check my bag and then I got to security. The security checked everything and just because I had skin lotion in my bag that was an ounce bigger than the 3 ounces that they allow, I had to make a choice to throw it away or put it in my luggage. I was not going to throw anything away my hard money paid for. I decided to put it in my luggage. That means I had to get out the security line I waited in for 30-45 minutes to go to the customer service line to call for my luggage that took another 10-15 minutes for them to bring back up. Once I received my luggage, I had to start all over again which was making me later and later.

I reached customer service representative finally to check my luggage again that I waited in line another 15-20 minutes for and to find out my plane left. Then the customer service advised me due to me missing my flight, I would have to pay an additional $70.00 to reschedule my flight. At that point I was livid, but still remained calm and paid the fee of $70 just to enjoy my trip to Ft Lauderdale, FL. I do say I enjoyed my trip and then I had to return back to Dallas, TX! My flight was supposed to leave out on a Saturday morning and did I remind you I was on time again at least 2 hours ahead of schedule? I received my boarding pass and checked my bag. The customer service representative advised me due to my luggage being 51lbs, I had to pay an additional $25 to another customer service representative in a whole different line. Which means I was waiting again all together a little over an hour, which I was still calm and charged it on my card so I can get home and to never use this company again.

In the process, guess what? I missed my flight again and the representative told me that she can reschedule me since I was already there when the plane was departing and there will be no additional fee. Now that really tops the cake. So you mean to tell me I came out of pocket $70 to reschedule my first flight when I was already at the freaking airport? The customer service rescheduled. I went ahead and checked my bag so I don't have to deal with any more lines when I returned. I returned that night to catch my flight and this time I made sure I was 4 hours early. I sat by my gate the whole time and the boarding time came up. When I looked at the screen, the destination was changed. I asked an attendant what was going and these are her exact words: Dallas was boarded at another gate and I announced it on the intercom. If you were listening, you would have known that!

I walked away to go speak with a supervisor, which I had to wait another 45-60 minutes to get assistance. I tried to explain my situation and at this point I am livid and entirely fed up. I asked when is the next flight and am I able to leave ASAP due to my bag was already in Dallas. The supervisor told me that was nothing she can do. The soonest available flight was on Monday. Did I remind you this is Saturday and I have no clothes? I advised her that was not acceptable and I will need to be accommodated for my needs. She said she cannot offer me anything, but to reschedule for Monday. She will not refund me and will not provide a hotel room. I have a choice to take the flight Monday or nothing at all! That's when I snapped. She was very rude and I thought you were supposed to do your best to satisfy your customers.

I myself am a supervisor and I would at least advise the customer to allow me to see what I can do to assist you and not there isn't anything I can do. I was unable to bring to her attention on the rude attendant because after that she walked away. There was an attendant who was standing there and I wish I would have taken her name down because she tried her best to assist me and put me on standby for Sunday morning, and submitted a request for my refund I had asked the supervisor for. I have never flown with any other airlines and received this horrible service before. I will make it my purpose to bring this to everyone's, that I know, attention. They will never get my money again. I will make sure I let everyone know mainly after seeing 15-20 customers pissed off at the airlines for whatever reason. Thanks for listening. They will never get my money again.

I did not receive the email confirmation until April 2, 2013, a day after the scheduled departure. If I had received the email for departure and check in, which I sometimes do, I would have caught the mistake when I printed my boarding passes for departure. I approached the full service desk of Spirit Airlines in Fort Lauderdale and was told we could not get out until April 8, 2013 which was certainly not feasible. I also purchased my seats on the flight we missed. We were seven passengers. I am sure that they sold our seats to others and were compensated twice for the same seats. This is certainly not ethical in my opinion. In our group, we had an elderly woman and three of our very young grandchildren. We needed to get home for various reasons. After five hours, US Air was able to accommodate my family the next day on April 2 for a hefty price of $2,700 which we paid.

Here are the issues I have with the incident: If I had the 24-hour ahead confirmation email from Spirit Airlines and was able to print our boarding passes for departure, I would have caught the problem. There was a disgruntled customer at the Spirit desk that had a similar problem and was using foul language in front of our already crying grandchildren. Security was called to deter any physical altercations with the ticket agent. This caused emotional distress to our young grandchildren. I am a breast cancer patient and have lymph edema in my left breast. I have to do physical therapy three times per day and missed the last one due to the time in the line waiting to try to rectify the problem therefore causing a severe swelling which makes it very difficult to correct.

I understand Spirit's policies but I believe that they should not sell seats twice and if a flight is missed, they should be able to accommodate their customers with a re-booked flight within 24 hours or at least reimburse the consumer minus a small fee (like restocking fee). To conclude, if this issue is not rectified by Spirit Airlines, I intend to bring this to a public forum which I have access to (NBC 10) as well as bring a lawsuit against them for not only reimbursing me the $971.53 plus cost of seats, but also the $2,700 it cost me to get home the next day. I also intend to file a lawsuit for the pain I suffered and continue to suffer while waiting in line being unable to do the physical therapy on my breast as required by my oncologist. My grandchildren are traumatized by this incident and are not very interested in returning to our Florida home. I have communicated with Spirit Airlines via telephone and email with no results or concerns on their behalf.

I have to say this was my first time flying with Spirit and I am happy to say that it will be my last time. It is the worst airline in the world and I do not recommend this airline to anyone. It is the biggest scam!

I will have a 16-month-old baby with me, which is why we chose the flights we did in the first place and now having to lay over! I thought that the reasoning behind purchasing your tickets in advance was to give you better option. Seems like we have been burned for being the early birds. I'm so irate at this moment. I actually feel sorry for their customer service. They have to deal with mismanagement of their company. They offer you a good deal to fly with them then change the option to something crappy, and you have to deal with or lose money. I'm not Oprah and nor do I have Oprah's bank account. I have a family that we take time and plan our trips.

This is not due to weather issues like storms or snow. This is due to just plain greed and horrible schedule of the airlines. They (Spirit Airlines) want to make it far misleading people. I pray for a great flight or I will just have to go to the top with my complaint (not to the CEO or owner of the company, but I will take my little time and write a letter to the BBB and to the head of whatever I need to make my point). My voice (complaint) and others will be heard (petition). I have never seen these many complaints as I have regarding this airline. I am actually nervous about the whole situation and especially since I'm taking my baby.

The customer service guy at the desk also told us the flight for BWI (Baltimore) the next day was fully booked. They had no service to any other airports that were close to where we were going. He also said that for an extra $200 each (making it $400 in total), we would need to get on the later flight, which was way too late to make it to ATL to set out to VA in the time needed. Anyway, when things were done, we were unable to go to the wedding and were out $430. Me even more because I took off work to travel. I should have just booked on Southwest.

Get over to the gate, there is no one there at the desk. Flight boards at 3PM, however, it's 2:55 and no plane. No one. It is 3:30 now and no plane, but someone finally comes over and said the flight is delayed. Thanks for the heads up notice. Departure time was supposed to be 3:45, but instead it left at 4:40. Almost missed my shuttle in Chicago to go back to school. Very unprofessional airline and absolutely the last time I will fly with them. I'd rather fly United. I hate United too, but I would choose them over Spirit.

You hide behind your business model claiming you are helping travelers by offering them an alternative to more expensive travel. It is simply a facade to mask your real intent and disguise what you really know the state of our economy offers greedy, predatory individuals and opportunity to prey on those less fortunate! Quite simply, Spirit Airlines was conceptualized out of the same greed that payday loan companies were born. You are cut from the same cloth. You've been birthed from the same womb. You are contributing to the greedy perception of the United States and you are no different from the same people who sat in a room and said, "Hey all these unemployed, the poor, those who have struggled to raise families as best they could and put their credit scores aside just to survive, need loans too. They will flock to us! And because they are, they will keep coming back no matter how we treat them!" Your aim is to attack those less fortunate to take advantage of those in circumstances not in their control.

When a company states that their intent is to help offer travelers the opportunity to get discount fares by not paying for the extras that other airlines include, I say good for you! What a concept! But then you decide that the idea of helping consumers is conditional, ha-ha. If a company wants to build their organization on the idea that they are helping others, then that should be an unconditional statement, not something that applies only when it increases your profit, your margin or when conditions are right for the company! It is with embarrassment and shame that I admit I have flown Spirit 5 times now. I have been thoroughly disgusted every time. Fool me once, fool me twice, we all know how the saying goes. I can assure you that though in my current situation, Spirit Airlines is profiting from my temporary circumstances, this will be the very last time I fly with them!

Spirit constantly misinforms about their flight status, probably to maintain better official flight statistics. The website, as well as the Spirit's personnel, don't admit the flights are delayed until after the time the planes are supposed to be airborne. Never mind the great inconvenience the passengers. If I were given real information about constant 1-2-3 hour delays, I would much rather spend extra time with my family or have a decent meal outside the airport than sit in a terminal choking on some fast food.

Right now, it's past midnight. I am sitting in a cold LAX terminal. All other flights have left. My flight was supposed to take off 15 minutes ago, but Spirit's website still says the flight is on time. The plane has not even landed. It is extremely cold here, and I think I am coming down and with cough and a cold, but I can't buy anything warm for myself: all the stores are shut down and there are no Spirit representatives in sight. It looks like I am going to miss my work tomorrow.

As I was typing this, Spirit updated the flight status to being delayed by at least 1.5 hours. Why only now? If Spirit doesn't know where their planes are, how can it be trusted to conduct air travel? I really hope that Spirit will be investigated for questionable and shady practices regarding their flight statistics. I'm not even going to get started on their hidden fees in this review, for which they are notorious. Just google them: "passenger usage fee", "unintended consequences fee", up to $100 for a carry-on(!) at the gate. It all just screams "superior customer service", doesn't it?

I will never fly Spirit again and will make sure to spread the word among everyone I know to stay away from this carrier. I bet that if they are this cheap and shady on customer service, they are just as bad with aircraft maintenance and safety.

All passengers made their way back through security and got in line, only to be told after 10 minutes that the agent upstairs made a mistake. Only those connecting to West Coast will be re-booked. The majority of passengers going to Chicago have to wait and go back through security. Now it's time to line up again for a meal voucher. Up to a 40-minute wait because each voucher has to be signed by hand. Meal voucher is $7. Nothing in the airport is $7. My Subway turkey salad and diet soda cost me $3. One passenger was fuming that he waited in line for $7. It's now 7:50, but the monitor at the gate still displays the 6:30 flight as on time.

March 15, same flight one week later. Everybody on board was on time. Doors close. Ground stop in Chicago for at least 1 hour. Most people got off the plane. Flight departs about 9PM. Then something that reflects just how poorly trained and organized Spirit is. The flight is about 1,000 feet off the ground and two flight attendants are coming down the aisle collecting trash. About 200 feet off the ground, they realized the plane is seconds from touching down and they reversed course and began running up the aisle towards the front of the plane to get strapped into their seats. They didn't make it. The plane hit the runway and the attendant bringing up the rear slammed into her colleague. Both then stumbled into their seats. All the passengers laughed. Some clapped as if it was a circus act, which it was.

I could also write about the time the flight computer went dead after everybody boarded and the pilot came on the intercom and said, "Huh, I don't know what's wrong with it." That was a 2-hour delay. Spirit is not only the worst airline (and I use the term airline loosely) in operation on the planet today. They could quite possibly be one of the worst consumer-facing businesses in the United States today.

The fact that their on-site signage indicates that you may purchase lower rates online, but their website blocks payment options for the lower fees is false advertising. The website also instructs you to print out boarding passes which means you do not have any reason to seek out the airline kiosk where other lower fees are available. This is another misleading and fraudulent practice that is designed to trick and force customers to pay higher rates. The response from Spirit Airlines is meaningless, and they should not be able to continue these manipulative and unfair practices.

When the gate agents finally came out, at 5 minutes to scheduled departure, I explained why he was late and if he could get on the plane. She looked at us with complete contempt and said, "Ma'am, we are on time. You are late." When I pointed out that we were actually 15 minutes before the scheduled time, she said, "You can't get on the plane." We literally stood and watched the plane pull away from the gate five minutes later and then take off. Additionally, she couldn't get us on another flight until late the next day. We ended up having to forfeit the fare and go buy another ticket at American, who by the way couldn't have been nicer. And interestingly enough, when I told them why I had to book a ticket, they guessed on the first try that it was Spirit that treated us so poorly. To quote the agent, "Oh, I didn't even have to guess what airline would treat you like that."

I contacted Spirit this evening because I haven't heard from them and I need money to pay for Mom's funeral expenses. I spoke with Jasper at Spirit at 7:13 pm and he advised me that the credit card was refunded. I advised him that the credit card was closed and that the credit was bounced back to Spirit. I asked Jasper (who is located overseas) for a phone number and/or email address to the corporate office in Miramar, FL. Jasper could not find one and said he spoke with his supervisor who said he did not have one either.

I am very frustrated with Spirit Airlines. I really need to speak with a live person in Miramar and get this settled and/or correspond with them via email. I really need your help!

A year later, March 2013, I get a charge on my credit card bill for $59.95. I called to find out what it was, and after giving my information and being told that it was the renewal fee for that $9 club (!), I told the person that I had cancelled that the same day that I joined it and was unhappy to see the charge on my bill. After I gave my information to him, he said he had found my file. He asked for my confirmation number, which I couldn't find, so it automatically renewed. He asked me to hold while he gathered the information and then hung up on me. I called again and got a different person who immediately told me that it was nonrefundable and automatically renewed if you didn't cancel it. I cancelled it with this person and wrote down the confirmation number, which I will file away for next year. I asked to speak to a manager so I could complain to him and was put on hold for over 10 minutes before I finally gave up.

I believe that this "club" is presented in a way that misleads the consumer so he will join. The facts - that it is nonrefundable, automatically renews, and that you must have your confirmation number when you cancel or it will renew again - are not made clear and in some cases are well hidden in the ad. This is a disreputable business that I wish I had researched before I even looked at the website.

We were told the carry-on's would charge us $100 for each carry-on at the gate and it was $50 at the check in counter. My husband and I were out of words as to why and when this all happened. The woman saw that my husband and I are appalled at to what was happening, right before our honeymoon! She then called a woman by the name of Lucy to the counter. Lucy arrived and with the most unpleasant look on her face quickly told us we either pay or leave our carry-on. And she just walked away without any other contact or any explaining to us anything. My husband and I only had $200 in cash on hand. We couldn't believe that the only cash we had on would go towards our carry-on luggage! The gate was minutes away from closing and the representative could care less if we boarded or not. We were left with no choice but to pay what we had. We board the plane and got to Vegas.

On December 20, 2012, my husband and I prepared ourselves for the midnight flight back to Dallas. We called Spirit to ask if we also had to pay for our carry-on's for the way back to Dallas and were told we had to. She did not mention anything about any flight changers or any other important information. We checked in online through our hotel for our boarding passes and paid for our carry-on's online; all this to avoid any more issues at the airport. As the time approached to get to the airport, we got ready and were on our way. We go straight through security and to our gate. The screen next to our gate had our flight information posted and all was clear. We were there about two hours before our flight was supposed to board and we noticed another flight boarding through our gate to another city. I had a bad feeling.

I go to the receptionist and she told me that our 12:34am flight back to Dallas has been cancelled due to weather! I received no email from the airline nor tripcase that our flight has been cancelled. She then told me that when she got to work that afternoon around 5pm, that flight has since then been cancelled and that Spirit was re-booking flights for other passengers at the Spirit counter. My husband and I couldn't believe that after all we have been through with Spirit, now this! We took our things and head back to the Spirit counter and the gentleman by the name of Gerald told us that Spirit can refund the money back or re-book. We told him that we want to be re-booked on the very next flight! After an hour at the counter with untrained, selfless employees comes a beautiful woman willing to help us out to get back home! She luckily finds us two seats on the next flight at around 4:30am from Vegas to Houston, then Houston to Dallas! We told her to book that flight quickly! She happily booked us the flight and apologized for all the issues caused.

I am a travel agent and I would never recommend or book any of my clients on Spirit. I no longer want to be a Spirit Airlines member or be associated with that airline in any way. I would be more than happy to get money back at least for the carry-on luggage issue, for all the inconvenience caused by Spirit on my honeymoon. The least thing I wanted to worry about was the flight there and back. It was hell flying with Spirit. I would be embarrassed by the attitude of these employees that represent the airline. I would be more than happy to speak to a supervisor about my terrible experience.

When we finally got to Dallas, my luggage was not on the plane, so I waited over an hour to try and locate it. I filled out the missing luggage form, then the girl assured me she would find it. I never heard a word that night after leaving 4-5 messages, so I got on the phone to Houston to see if it was there - I left messages there with no responses. I called Houston first thing Saturday, then I finally got someone in Orlando who could confirm that it was on the manifest going out. She called back in a couple of hours to say it was going to be on the Houston flight at 4:00 p.m., so I went back to the airport - no bag! I spent another 2 hours trying to find it with no information provided again. The baggage claim in Dallas only got voice-mail in Houston, as I had done. Finally, at 10:30 Saturday night, I got someone in Houston who explained that it had flown to Dallas, but had a Houston tag, so it returned to Houston, but she assured me it would be on the 7 a.m. flight, arriving 8:15. Well, I finally got my luggage at 11:15 a.m. before leaving for the airport at 1:00. Needless to say, I had no clothes, no toiletries, makeup, or hair implements for an entire weekend of the conference.

Here's the bottom line - the baggage claim ticket was written to Houston, not Dallas, so it kept going back to Houston! When I asked about being reimbursed for any toiletries, they said it was not likely, so I couldn't afford $65 at a hotel gift shop. On a positive note, the flight home on Sunday was on schedule in a month-old plane and the luggage arrived. Just FYI, if price is the only issue, and you don't need to really be somewhere on a schedule with your baggage, then you might be fine with Spirit. Overall, their customer service and computer systems are awful.

We boarded at the correct time, around 6:00AM, and everything looked okay for a takeoff at 6:45AM. At 7:30AM we were still on the runway. The company didn't mention anything special. We finally took off. Of course nothing was offered - no chips, no soda, but we could buy refreshment. Getting closer to Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL), the company started to inform us that they didn't have communication with the terminal, but they will help with the connective flights. We arrived at 10:30AM instead of 9:48AM. We asked for the connection information for Bogota. The personnel sent us to the service desk where a woman informed us that the flight was gone and that the next flight was tomorrow at 10:30AM.

The agent spoke with her manager and offered us a pink flyer (voucher) with a hotel hotline phone number or online reservation. Before taking that route, we spent an hour online to try to find an alternative. With Jetblue, the flight was already gone. With Avianca, we had to go back to NYC. We tried to find flights from Miami Airport with LAN and Continental, but either not enough time to get there one time (45 minutes by car) or too expensive. We ended up having to stay at Fort Lauderdale overnight. We used the voucher online and got an $87.70 deal at Days Inn, 10 minutes from the airport. We took the hotel's van and got a room.

The next day, we took the van back at 8AM, got our boarding pass and checked the luggage. We went to gate H8 and sat there until 10AM for boarding. We got in the queue and went. We showed our boarding pass. One of the agents told us that one of our carry-on bag was too big and that we had to pay $100. We tried to explain that we took a flight yesterday and didn't have that issue. The agent told us that we had to go to the service counter now before we lose the flight, so we went to gate H5 where ten people were already in line. We tried to get the attention from the agent (the same woman that day before).

Of course, she told us to do the line like anybody else. So we waited there and when came our turn, she asked for the boarding pass and credit card. I gave them with some energy, making sure she understood that weren't not happy with the service. She asked me to give them nicely; at the same time on the PA, they were asking for us. Yolanda (my wife) returned to gate H8 to speak with the agent during the time that I was finishing to pay another $100 for one carry-on luggage. We were the last people to get on board. We finally arrived at Bogota on time.

For the return, I took my precaution and went online to the site the day before to check-in and registered the luggage. Of course, I paid again $70 for the bags. After going through the check-in process, I got a message "We apologize, but the following do not qualify for online check-in and must check in with the agent at the counter." The next day at the airport, everything went without any problem until Fort Lauderdale (FL) where we arrived around 7PM and had to be on gate H8 at 7:30PM for our flight at 8:13PM, with in between going through a line for immigration, collect our bags, go through another line for custom, drop our bags and go through our third lines for security and run to the gate. When we arrived at the gate, we learned that the flight was delayed until 8:50PM. We finally arrived in NYC at midnight instead of 10:59PM.

In conclusion, we paid a regular price for a flight to Bogota $630 x 2 plus an extra $347.7 and lost a day in Florida. Spirit Airlines was the worst company that I traveled with in 30 years. Spirit is the number one worst airlines ever.

To make the story short, they were promised in Florida that the airline was going to refund the $80 fee, but they had to file a reimbursement claim. Well, it turned out that when I called the airline to file a reimbursement claim, I was told that since they missed the connecting flight, they automatically have forfeited their return flight on March 12, 2013. I was stunned and confused. First of all, I didn't know that by missing a connecting flight, your return flight would be cancelled. Anyway, the supervisor, **, told me that there was not a lot he could do to reimburse the $80 fee, but out of generosity, he could book the flight again so my wife's relatives could fly back to their homeland.

The bottom line is, they charged a luggage fee twice. He had the nerve to say that, out of generosity, he would book their flight back. Hello! I have already paid for a return flight. In the end, if these few words helped anyone in any way not to fly through Spirit, the purpose of this complaint has been fulfilled.

On April 19th, I purchased a ticket for $328.58 and was issued a credit of $169.60. The credit expired. On Oct. 31, I purchased tickets for $263.19 (includes $59 for $9 Fare Club and +37,500 miles) and was issued a credit for $78.24. The credit expired and they did not give me back my miles. On Oct. 31, I purchased a ticket for $634.70 and was issued a credit for $519.70. The credit expired. So for those three purchases, Spirit kept $750 for doing absolutely nothing. Why is this not theft?

I filed a complained with the Aviation Authority in Colombia as well as the Department of Transportation DOT's Aviation Consumer Protection Division (ACPD). Also, although I live in Toronto, I will pursue in a small claim court against Spirit in Niagara, NY to recover my money. It was Spirit Airline's failure to provide the flight service change requested which prompted me to buy a new ticket, and they should have honored at least the return.