Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Spirit Airlines is a Scam

Spirit Airlines advertises a club membership called "$9 Fare Club".  They charge you $59.95 to join this club. I thought this was a good deal, especially since they fly to all of the cities I want to visit this year. I paid the membership and could see the charge was posted to my account. I was able to log in to the site as a member, but I saw no $9 fares. I searched all the way out to May of this year, and still no $9 fares.  That was a few days ago. Today, I receive an email from Spirit Airline advertising $20 fares for their $9 fare club members. I logged on to their site, somewhat skeptical, to search for these $20 fares. Nothing.  I ran a comparison of the flights that they do offer to those on sites like expedia and priceline.com.  Spirit offers a slightly cheaper flight by adding one or two legs on to the flight. They don't offer comparable one-way flights, but try to give the impression of an actual discount.  I decided to call and ask for a refund. I was asked by the first agent if I read the terms and conditions of the membership. Mind you, his response came off as if this was something he was confronted with on a daily basis. The representative stated that the company offer $9 fares in the past but that $9 fares are rarely available to current customers.  I challenge the exercise of calling a membership a $9 Fare Membership when that's not what's being offered. The representative didn't have an explanation.  I asked to speak to someone who could represent the refund policy of his company. He then transferred me to a representative in the $9 Fare Club division/department. I was then connected to Juki.  I asked Juki (Rep. ID29990) why they advertise the membership as the $9 Fare Club if they don't actually offer $9 fares. Juki immediately leaned on their terms and conditions.  She asked if I read them. I flipped the question on her. "Did you read them? If so, turn to page 2 and read the first paragraph. If you can actually read the small print tell me what it says." Dead silence. After a stern request for a refund and a stern rejection from Juki, I asked to speak with her supervisor. I was then transferred to a young lady by the name of Ice (Rep ID29987). Ice simply restated what was said by Juki. I informed Ice of the actions I would take and asked to speak with their legal department of someone in customer relations. She stated that customer relations doesn't speak to customers directly and that I should go online to fill out a form to communicate with customer relations.  Out of sheer frustration, I asked to speak with her supervisor. After a 10-minute hold, I was transferred to Morris (Rep. ID30195). Morris stated that the fares are discounted by 50%, which is untrue. I informed him that I would try to take legal action if necessary, and asked him for the mailing address to their legal department, which is Spirit Airlines Inc, Attn: Legal Department, 2800 Executive Way, Miramar, FL 33025.

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