Frontier Airlines is offering its “GoWild!” unlimited flying pass for $599 the first year. If you don’t cancel it will auto-renew for $1999 the second year. It’s a brilliant way for the airline to monetize seats that are otherwise-likely to go empty, and can be a great deal for travelers living in major Frontier cities like Denver, Orlando and Las Vegas.
This lets you buy an unlimited number of domestic U.S. flights, booked the day prior to travel, for just $0.01 in airfare plus taxes and fees (or in most cases less than $15 per flight). While Frontier does fly to Mexico and the Caribbean, the flight pass covers U.S. only.
There 56 blackout dates in the first year, and last seat availability isn’t guaranteed. The idea is they don’t want someone on a $599 pass to displace paying passengers. Instead, booking is only available the day before travel on flights with open seats in eligible booking classes. And they don’t reward thee flights with miles or status credit.
Two common questions I’ve received over the last day – which I waited to write about the offer until I’d learned answers – turn out to make the pass more valuable.
- No booking fees apply. Frontier’s “carrier interface charge” is not billed on bookings made with this pass.
- Elite benefits fully apply. So if you have Frontier’s elite status that waives fees, those fees will be waived when flying on this pass.
As it was put to me by a source, these bookings “will operate essentially like an award flight plus the penny fare.”
My rough model is if you’re going to use this pass monthly, it can make good sense, but there’s risk that if you’re traveling during peak periods you might not be able to get a return seat to fly back after a trip (since you can’t confirm travel until the day before). Think of this as paying for highest priority non-revving, and the people who should be most unhappy about this method of liquidating spoiling inventory are those who actually non-rev.
I have a hard time seeing this pass make sense in the second year though, unless you’re traveling a minimum of weekly with Frontier. And then you’re… traveling weekly with Frontier. Given elite status the deal is worth quite a lot, but those without status need to remember that much of the cost of Frontier Airlines travel is the fees charged to non-elites not just base airfare. And since traveling on this pass doesn’t earn elite credit, it’ll be hard for those buying the pass to keep status and avoid fees for the more expensive second year… unless, of course, spending enough on the airline’s co-brand credit card since one dollar of spend earns a mile of qualifying activity.
As for me, Frontier is big enough out of Austin where this could conceivably make sense, but the lack of inflight wifi makes the airline a non-starter for my regular use.
Since one can only book a flight the day before flying, that is a deal breaker for me.
I estimate that the average person might be able to use it 4 times (round trips). You can’t use it until later in May. Maybe one round trip in June, September, October, and early November. That works out to be $150 round trips.
If you are totally free and can travel on Tuesdays and are retired, you can squeeze out more flights.
@ Gary — The only thing that could make this useful would be if you could fly on another airline.
I can’t recommend this pass. I was status matched to their top Elite 100K status for this year, and I’ve used it more than I expected to. I’ve paid an average of about $30 each way for my tickets. Since late spring, the cost of domestic tickets has skyrocketed on the majors, but Frontier’s ridiculous “come on” fares have remained.. Almost everyone else has to pay those sky-high additional fees, but as an Elite 100K, I pay nothing else for bags, comfortable exit row seating, priority boarding, refundablility, etc. It’s a good deal, BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVE 100K STATUS. Otherwise, I’d only fly Frontier if I really, really had to, since their regular seats are very cramped and you don’t get a free bag. Since they don’t fly with great frequency, I’ve averaged less than 1 Frontier roundtrip per month. Do the math: I get confirmed exit row seats whenever I want. I don’t need to wait until the last minute to book. So even as a 100K, this deal isn’t a good deal for me — and probably most everyone else.
prob not a good deal,, and the other think if you work for Frontier tying to use a pass benefit on standby this will really deminish your chances of getting on a flight greatly.
Nope. Maybe if you live in Denver, but then, you’re still flying on Frontier. And you have no ability to plan anything with this, and you’re going to be pounded on fees.
This is a fool’s errand.
The only downside is you have to fly Frontier
Ok, if I lived in a Frontier hub that also had a lot of SW flights, like Denver, I guess I could look at cities where they both fly, book on SW and then cancel if Frontier has space. But, that would be a lot of leg work and hoping. I’d pass.
Dan of Dans Deals has determined Frontier will charge $14.60 in fees/taxes for nonstop flights with this pass. Considering their weekly fare deals are often only 2 or 3x that price (including fees/taxes) this pass is a bad deal. The only caveat is, perhaps, if you like to fly last minute at peak times — like Fridays and Sundays — and Frontier makes seats available at those times — the savings could become material. I’ve personally never paid more than $60 for a domestic Frontier flight (and just this week flew for less than $20), but the fares at peak times can be significantly higher than that. Of course, the pass blacks out the most peak travel days.
This is awful. The closest analogy would be getting a free Greyhound ticket with every ticket used. Except this is Frontier so it’s worse.
If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is……
Significant other purchased it for me. Can’t wait. This will afford me a way to get to BDL, PVD and other areas in the U.S. to do some ancestry research and to National Parks that I haven’t visited yet. I plan to get my bang for the buck with this year’s pass. Not planning on renewing though.
My only hope is that this inspires other airlines to offer some type of passes – really surprised no one has offered any since the famous AA one that Cuban got way back….I would think there would be a market for different levels (Coach, Biz, First) and priorities (book one day ahead, week ahead, etc)…it is just a matter of finding a price that makes sense for us passengers and the airlines…
@ steve Alaska Airlines has the Flight Pass for $49 a month, but Flight Pass credits can be redeemed for travel on nonstop Alaska Airlines flights within California or between California and Nevada, Arizona or Utah.
This is worse than non-revving, because they do not guarantee last seat availability when you try to book a day in advance. You will get rejected if they think they can sell that seat. Read the fine print – they can block out any flight they want, and they will. The only “free” fares you are going to get for your $599 plus fees are flights that are nowhere near selling out (i.e., the cheap seats).
Non-revs will get that last seat if it is available. I get the absolute last seat all the time, and sometimes I am the odd man out. Passholders probably won’t get that last seat, because they got blocked out yesterday on a nearly-full flight and they have no recourse.
I think this would work well for people with very flexible schedules. I was interested until I read that you can only book the day before the flight. I don’t live in a Frontier hub, but there is good connecting service to lots of places. But I wouldn’t know if I could get home, so that usually wouldn’t work. I could limit myself to trips where I could book another acceptable flight home as a backup and then cancel if Frontier opens up, but needing to take that other flight too often would kill the value of the promotion. I wonder how many people will actually be able to make good use of this.
@Tino
Excellent point. Thank you for doing the research that seemingly no one else has, which is a shame. People should be made more aware of this. This is objectively the worst airline in the US with the worst customer service in the planet perhaps, they will not making redeeming flights easy. What if you are stuck at a destination and cannot return back home because they block you out? Precisely.
Having a very flexible schedule, no plans to check a bag, not caring about seat assignment, not expecting to get a seat on or near the holidays, knowing what to expect from the airline and not a nit-picky flyer, I doubt that for a full year of flying that I will be blocked out that much. Not letting Tino or others throw a wet blanket on my pass purchase.
As of today (11/18/22), Frontier has officially shared that the pass will indeed be valid for both domestic and international flights. This opens the doors to the airline’s routes to Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America and get confirmed bookings 10 days before flight departure for international travel. Sale ends at 11:59 PM Mountain Time today!
This “deal” will be regretted by 99 percent of the people who buy it. That other 1 percent should play the lottery because they are the luckiest people in the world. Frontier is the worst airline in the sky. I am a 100k elite and this airline has cost me money this year. They do not have the equipment to make this work, hub or no hub. I have had numerous schedule changes that caused me to alter hotel reservations and adjust car rental times and they usually cause the cost of my trips to increase, not to mention the hassle to make those changes. I can only imagine how much more difficult this would have been on one days notice. Back in February my wife and I got stranded by Frontier at Tampa but I rebooked for the next available (three days later) flight home thinking they certainly would not cancel back to back flights, BUT THEY DID. The counter agent wouldn’t even look me in the eye and was absolutely no help. I flew home on Spirit the next morning but after over 400 (not a misprint) emails, 2 written letters (both ignored) and many phone calls, I have yet to see a penny in reimbursement. Don’t do this promotion, you will be sorry.
@mike s.
On my way out to get the lottery ticket.
I was a little confused about the earlier comment. Will Frontier allow stand-by passengers, (including employees, spouse’s, parents, children, buddy pass holders, & revenue stand-by passengers), to be able to get on BEFORE “wiildpass” users are allowed to get on/book the flight?