Spirit Airlines Could Stop Flying In Hours — 6 Things Customers Should Do Now

With Spirit Airlines on the brink of failure and potentially shutting down in a matter of hours, here’s what you can do.

• If you have a ticket, your best recourse is your credit card: If Spirit Airlines ceases flying, file a chargeback for any tickets you’ve purchased but not yet flown. Debit card protections are not as strong as with credit card, but either way talk to your bank. Spirit will not have provided the product they promised.

• If you’re mid-trip there will probably be rescue fares: Airlines are discussing how to assist Spirit Airlines passengers who may be stranded. American Airlines told employees this is under discussion. It may be standby only, and many flights will be full, but these options should become known quickly if Spirit shuts down.

• You may be stuck coming out of pocket: for new airline tickets, and for hotel and meals while you’re trying to sort out new transportation. Sometimes you are just self-insuring against risks when you travel. That’s potentially tough for some Spirit customers. If your credit card has coverage, or you have travel insurance, there may be potential reimbursement avenues – but you’re still finding the best way home and fronting the cash.

  It will be interesting to see what travel insurance covers – recent ticket purchases may be excludable under some policies past the point where a Spirit liquidation became foreseeable. Any escalation of such a claim becomes very interesting, because comments by the President of the United States about a government bailout might have made such purchases seem safer?

• Consider booking a backup flight now: Use miles and it’s often free to cancel! But I’d make alternate travel arrangements before there’s a rush by all Spirit Airlines passengers to do so. With paid tickets, 24 hour free cancel rules vary by airline since the government only requires it when tickets are purchased at least 7 days prior to travel. Delta is the only one that officially says they will honor it even for tickets purchased on the day of travel.

  If the reservation is made on the date of travel, you may cancel and refund your paid ticket in full until midnight that day or travel starts, whichever is first.

  Southwest, in my experience, does in practice.

• Screenshot everything now: Your confirmation number, receipt, ticket numbers, paid bags, seats, bundles, Saver$ Club charges, itinerary, Free Spirit balance, and status level. If Spirit liquidates their systems may become unavailable and you want evidence for your card issuer, insurer, DOT complaint, bankruptcy claim, or another airline’s possible rescue travel offer or status match offer.

• Your miles are mostly gone: Spirit Airlines does not have many options for spending points outside of Spirit Airlines travel. Even the lone partner redemption spending points for magazines appears to have had all available inventory pulled. So there’s no real escape route – no quick way to spend points for merchandise. While there’s value in the credit card portfolio and customer list, it’s not clear that anyone will assume the points liability.

  Honestly though if I were Frontier I’d aggressively offer (1) a status match and (2) a points match campaign that allows you to earn back your Spirit Airlines balance as bonus miles against points earned with Frontier.

If Spirit Airlines liquidates, it will have failed because its costs went up, they didn’t have the right product consumers wanted, and larger airlines learned to compete effectively against their low fares. United, Delta and American offered a slightly better product at the same price, so customers chose the better product.