Patman
Staff member
We fly Spirit airlines a lot, as they have a flight out of Niagara Falls NY that goes to Fort Lauderdale and it's very cheap, we've flown round trip for as low as $90 each. We travel light (just a small backpack each) so we never pay extra for baggage. Their customer service is hit and miss, one time our flight got cancelled from Florida to NY because of bad weather and they told us they couldn't get us on another flight for a full week! That's the problem with having only one flight per day that goes from Fort Lauderdale to Niagara. They did refund us the entire cost of our tickets (not just the return portion) so we were able to book a flight with Allegiance out of Punta Gorda the next day (and that ticket cost us roughly the same as our Spirit refund)
We also had one instance on a flight where my wife hit the call button to ask for a bottle of water, and nobody came so she went to the back of the plane and found the flight attendant asleep! When we later complained to Spirit about this, they gave us a free flight voucher, so we used it to fly from Detroit to Las Vegas a few months later. And on that flight, we somehow got bumped up to the first row seating for free (wider seats with tons of leg room in front), even though we checked in at the airport just a short time before the flight. So we definitely enjoyed that!
We will continue to use Spirit for our Florida trips because it's not only the best price around but the timing of the flight works out awesome for short trips because it leaves Niagara at 2:30 am and arrives in Fort Lauderdale at 5:30am, so the first day of our trip ends up being a full day, not a half day like most flights that would have you arriving in the early afternoon. The return flight home leaves Fort Lauderdale at 11pm, so that means the last day of the trip is also a full day. So this type of flight works out perfectly for us when we're doing a short 4 day trip to Florida (like we've done every February for the past 4 years) I always hate it when the first day and the last day of my trips get wasted due to travelling. I have no trouble sleeping on the plane (or in the airport before the flight leaves) in order to get the most out of my vacation time.
We also had one instance on a flight where my wife hit the call button to ask for a bottle of water, and nobody came so she went to the back of the plane and found the flight attendant asleep! When we later complained to Spirit about this, they gave us a free flight voucher, so we used it to fly from Detroit to Las Vegas a few months later. And on that flight, we somehow got bumped up to the first row seating for free (wider seats with tons of leg room in front), even though we checked in at the airport just a short time before the flight. So we definitely enjoyed that!
We will continue to use Spirit for our Florida trips because it's not only the best price around but the timing of the flight works out awesome for short trips because it leaves Niagara at 2:30 am and arrives in Fort Lauderdale at 5:30am, so the first day of our trip ends up being a full day, not a half day like most flights that would have you arriving in the early afternoon. The return flight home leaves Fort Lauderdale at 11pm, so that means the last day of the trip is also a full day. So this type of flight works out perfectly for us when we're doing a short 4 day trip to Florida (like we've done every February for the past 4 years) I always hate it when the first day and the last day of my trips get wasted due to travelling. I have no trouble sleeping on the plane (or in the airport before the flight leaves) in order to get the most out of my vacation time.
