Travelers committed to flying via cheap airplane tickets or cheap vacation packages need to be particularly careful prior to purchasing tickets from Spirit Airlines. As of November 8th Spirit raised its fee for domestic passengers to purchase tickets online from $8.99 each way to $16.99.
Its international online ticketing fee dropped $2 each way to $16.99.
Spirit is referring to its online ticketing fee as a passenger usage fee and charges it to any customer purchasing tickets online which makes up the vast majority of Spirits sales.
Spirit lists this generic sounding passenger usage fee along with government imposed taxes and fees, making it appear like an unavoidable fee.
Customers not wanting to pay online fees must go directly to an airport which houses Spirit customer representatives and wait in line to purchase a ticket from one of its agents. Spirit is not charging its online ticketing fee on flights departing from Columbia or Panama.
Spirit promotes itself us as a no frills airlines, advertising base fares as low as $9 but then charges its customers for things such as placing carry-on bags in an overhead bin or even ordering a glass of water in flight. Spirit has announced that in January it will start charging $5 for every boarding pass printed by a ticket agent.
The only other U.S. airline charging a fee when purchasing tickets via the Internet is Allegiant Travel Company. Its passengers must pay $17 to purchase a roundtrip ticket online.
Spirits booking fee can be as much as 40 percent or more of a tickets total price. For example, a $14 ticket price each way between Detroit and New York comes with $21.40 in federal taxes and security fees and a $33.98 passenger usage fee. www.cheapfares.com