The Airlines Confidential podcast has a regular segment, ‘fine or whine’ where they evaluate a consumer complaint about airlines and rule on whether the customer’s complaint is reasonable or just a whine.
This past week a customer wrote in that they’d signed up for the Spirit Airlines $9 fare club. It’s $60 the first year and auto-renews unless cancelled at $70 in subsequent years, and comes with access to discounts of $10 or more on airfare and 50% off baggage fees paid online. (There’s also an option to sign up for a $20 two month trial.)
There aren’t too many $9 fares anymore, and the program has recently been rebranded the Spirit Saver$ Club. You can definitely make your money back on the program, especially traveling with family, but there are no refunds on membership.
The woman who complained to the show signed up in the fall of 2019 didn’t use the benefit because of the pandemic, and then forgot about it. Spirit Airlines does say they email you a month before renewal to remind you about it. The woman says she first thought about the program again when her card was charged in November 2020. She cancelled the same day.
Spirit would neither give her a refund, nor give her the year of membership she’d paid for because that membership was cancelled.
Naturally podcast host Ben Baldanza, as former Spirit Airlines CEO and in charge when the program was created, didn’t comment on the issue. But co-host Chris Chiames argued that this is ‘a whine’ because the woman didn’t read the terms and conditions of the program. It’s her responsibility to read the rules, he said, and the airline’s responsibility to live up to those terms. (Neither she nor they mentioned the Spirit practice of sending an email reminder, and we do not know if it happened here or not.)
I disagree. Spirit is holding firm on their terms, but as a general matter,
- Businesses that rely on customers forgetting to cancel to make their money aren’t good businesses
- At a minimum if she’s being forced to pay for a year of service Spirit should honor that year of service.
- She didn’t receive the program’s benefits during the first year even, due to Covid-19, Spirit ought to be extra-accommodating here.
Any fair terms would allow a customer to cancel within a short period of time after renewing a membership and processing charges – whether it’s 30 days or even just a week.
Since Spirit will not even honor the year of membership in this woman’s telling, she should dispute the charge with her credit card company as she’s being billed for a product she did not receive.
Agreed – Spirit is the greediest company I have ever encountered.
We the people have paid taxes to allow them to stay in business,,, our taxes go to feed their greed. Obvious reflection of upper management.
I say cut them off, or better yet make them pay back.
Spirit is doing her a favor
Spirit sucks
I can’t imagine her credit card wouldn’t just charge that back for her.
Well, that certainly isn’t in the “Spirit” of things.
Fair or not the terms say “Once a Member cancels their membership, Membership cannot be reinstated; Member must sign up again and pay the applicable enrollment fee to receive Club benefits”.
If anybody reads terms maybe that’s the time not to sign up.
I’m not sure how well disputes will work when the Spirit is clearly within their terms, however anti-consumer they may be. It may well work though, as I know businesses get stuck with a lot of illegitimate charge-backs all the time.
Haha!
God forbid if anything happens to a Spirit flight. There’s no way in the name of Christ that your going to exit that plane on fire. It’s so tight that it takes over a half an hour to deplane the people and that’s in a normal exiting situation.
The program sucked. When you’re in error it is by the book. When the airline is in error, you’re just out of luck. Bad customer relations is bad for business.
I’m a long time member of the Spirit program, and I’m ALWAYS emailed a month before, alerting me that I’ll be charged UNLESS I cancel. Pretty clear here. You can call it “companies relying on people forgetting” I call it irresponsible. As far as “blaming” covid-19, and the loss of her not being able to travel is not the airline’s fault, and they shouldn’t be penalized for it. The airline’s are having a hard enough time through all of this, so take some responsibility for yourself, and cancel “before” you’re charged! She dropped the ball. Spirit owes her nothing… She agreed to the terms when she signed up. Suck it up buttercup. Pay attention next time.
If you think Spirit is a greedy company, you don’t know anything about the company, and especially haven’t flown or worked for American. Spirit saved all jobs from furlough without the PSP money, American on the other hand furloughed tons of people and only brought them back because they needed the PSP. American has been kept a float by tax payers not Spirit.
Spirit airlines is the biggest scam out there! I recently had to cancel a flight a week prior, they refused to refund my card. I’ve been trying to reach them, but they use an app, where they have given me fake numbers! They are the worst! Shut that crappy airline down already!
Sounds like this person was only going to be an occasional flyer. In order to justify the membership fee, one has to plan on flying more often. During the pandemic people were still making reservations. If you did not use them Spirit credited you back or gave vouchers for future flights to be used in a year or more.
It took me several attempts to cancel even though I received emails saying I was cancelled. I went through the motions several times. Here how I finally accomplished this near impossible feat. Call the support number, wait, wait , wait, then get transferred to a text chat with a person an hour or two later. But the chat actually works, and I believe I even got a refund too. But then I look and I am still registered and went through the process again. The refund may have been in the second try.
It took me several attempts to cancel even though I received emails saying I was cancelled. I went through the motions several times. Here how I finally accomplished this near impossible feat. Call the support number, wait, wait , wait, then get transferred to a text chat with a person an hour or two later. But the chat actually works, and I believe I even got a refund too. But then I look and I am still registered and went through the process again. The refund may have been in the second try. I even called my congressmen to complain
This customer better get a dang lawyer or else Spirit’s gonna screw many more people over!
Classic Baldanza-era thinking.
“Businesses that rely on customers forgetting to cancel to make their money aren’t good businesses”
Totally agree. Almost every subscription service I have sends an email about a week AFTER renewal to say we charged your card, welcome to your next year etc.
Almost the ONLY exception is ExpertFlyer, which sent me a reminder a month BEFORE renewal. Maybe they are just being kind and thoughtful, or maybe they know that their subscribers really use their service regularly. Either way, great service and I highly recommend it.
Frontier does the exact same thing for their similar service.
If, as a company, you have to go to the fine print…you’ve already lost. The right thing is never found in the fine print. That’s where scams reside.
I have attempted many times to cancel my $9 membership. It tells you to hit the cancel button, BUT, there isn’t a cancel button, it’s a scam! I tried to call but all they tell you is about the their flights and how to book a a new flight. I have never received a reminder email from them about renewal of the club. I’m sure there are a lot of us who have been scammed. So they continue getting the yearly fee, but, I’ll never fly with them again, so they’ve lost the cost of airfare for myself and family who fly often. If anyone can assist with “how to cancel the $9 club” let us know!
My experience with the club was they did in fact email me the month prior. And they told me at cancellation that it was discontinued immediately not when the renewal date comes.
Argue all you want about them playing nice. They do disclose both issues in regular sized print.
Worse airline ever..ans there customer service really sucks
I was able to get a refund. I tried to cancel online, then got some email that said welcome to free spirit, which I thought meant I was back to the free tier of their loyalty program, then i got billed. It was hard to reach their customer service chat but when i eventually got through they agreed to the refund.
Going after the credit card is bad advice: she received the service she contracted for, from the date it renewed to the date she cancelled it. Per the contract she agreed to, that was $70 for the services they provided.
Deregulation = companies can legally do what they want, including taking advantage of consumers.
Its pretty easy cancel your card and get a new one. Your not going to get a where so why waist your time.
Scummy airline….I used to fly from nyc to ft Lauderdale for $38 ROUND TRIP….long gone…now there’s no real deals….alot of low life employees….I took a flight from A.C one day…a woman named Abagail tried to shake me down for $200 cash…because she said my bag was too big…I put it in the size rack it fit…she still tried…I walked into the plane…she came with a coo…I told him it’s not a police matter…she’s trying to shake me down…we exited the plane…I showed cop my bag fits in the rack…he was pissed at spirit people… absolutely terrible system…then if you try to call…good luck speaking to people in the Philippines…who earn a dollar an hour trying to figure out your problems…. They never flew an airplane in their life
Yep. All airlines are greedy, without a doubt. Guess that is because they operate with such high overhead. But Spirit is by far the worst of the lot, but it is a cut rate, no frills operation, so you should expect it. I personally would never fly with them. Especially if I had a connection. You will miss that half the time.
Yes I don’t like spirit either I’m standing in line on time for my for my flight they’re arguing with a person in front of me so that made me late for my my flight so I had to cancel my money is gone and I don’t understand that and I’m trying to tell the person are you busy arguing with this person and I’m missing my flight so lost my money
I signed up for this one year that I flew to CA from IL in 2019 and it was worth it. I said I would cancel before they renew. I forgot to do so and admitted I screwed up, Couldn’t get a refund, my bad and took the $69 dollar loss in 2020. I canceled right then and there, received a “Sorry to see you go” email and said that’s done now. But low and behold, at the end of that year in 2021, didn’t see a renewal notice but I did suddenly see the $69 charge on my card and went ballistic. I was pissed. No place on the sight to cancel or complain. So I went to my credit card company showed the the charge AND the “Sorry to see you go” email and they got my money back. I received another “Sorry to see you go” email right after that was done and now the year is up and guess what?? That’s right! They sent me an email telling my card will be renewed for $69 in Feb this year 2022. I went on the sight and clicked the cancel again and I better see the “Sorry to see you go” email tomorrow. My next visit will be back to my credit card company to see if we can block them completely. If I have to get a new card issued, then so be it. This airline is the scum of the air travel industry. I will never fly with these crooks again.