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It’s underappreciated how much value there is in Frontier Airlines – when you have elite status with the low cost carrier. And it’s underappreciated how easy it is to have that status.
Bilt Rewards Vice President Richard Kerr knows: less than $20 per one-way flight for a family of four to Disney World, refundable and with free seat assignments, carry on bags, and checked bags.
I just paid a total of $153 for my family of four to fly roundtrip ATL-MCO with seats, carry-ons, checked bags and refundability. @FlyFrontier status is incredible. pic.twitter.com/erOlewbn50
— Richard Kerr (@KerrPoints) October 17, 2023
Frontier Airlines is offering to status match anyone with a pulse who has status with an airline.. a hotel chain.. or even a cruise line.. even if that status simply came with a credit card that you hold. Depending on your current elite level they will even give you top tier in their program.
Frontier’s model is super cheap airfare, and a lot of add-on fees. But Frontier’s top level waives all fees and even makes tickets refundable. Basically their incredible 2020 offer is back but they’re willing to match against a lot more programs this time. And they’re even willing to give you a match if you matched in 2020 and matched again in 2021.
- Base-level status comes with a free carry on bag and seat assignment, and extra legroom seats if available at check-in as some of its benefits.
- Mid-tier status adds bonus miles.
- And top tier status offers checked bags and makes all tickets refundable, for everyone on the member’s booking.
They’ll match against 16 different airlines, 15 different hotel programs, and 15 different cruise lines. Southwest Airlines Companion Pass earned via credit card is good for top tier Frontier status. Hotel and cruise programs only match up to mid-tier (50k) but those who do this match may be offered a buy up to top tier. And you may also be offered a discounted All You Can Fly pass.
Key things to know:
- The offer runs through December 31, 2023
- Matched status lasts through December 31, 2024
- There is a fee to apply for the match. This is a fee-based airline after all! It’s on-brand! They’re giving you status, you may never use it, and they’re outsourcing processing of the match request so there are costs.
It’s $99 match to the 20k and 50k elite levels and $149 to match to top tier 100K status.
- If you did the 2020 or 2021 status match offers you can do it again for an additional $50.
You do have to enroll in the Early Returns program if you aren’t already a member. Match requests are processed within 72 hours, often sooner.
To give you a sense, the 75K tier (e.g. Platinum at a major legacy airline) generally matches to Frontier’s 100K level. I love that Hilton Gold which is pretty much a credit card giveaway will match to the mid-tier 50K level.
I really like Frontier’s credit card, if you like the status you match to at Frontier it’s easy to keep because they were the first to offer qualifying miles for card spend. You can earn 100,000 mile top tier status and make all tickets refundable through credit card spend alone. (Of course redeeming my miles on Frontier isn’t as aspirational as I might prefer.)
This offer could get pulled early, or be modified to limit matches to top tier, so you’ll want to jump on it. We’ve seen the most generous components of similar offers pulled after just a few days. Also bear in mind that if you do not have status with any airline or hotel, they have a separate status offer for that. But surely you have a credit card that gives you hotel status or some such, right?
Nice but Atlanta to Orlando isn’t all that far, I wouldve just drove it probably taking almost same amount of time door to door then not have to deal with rental car or other transportation costs at MCO!
I have yet to find a time when it made sense to fly Frontier, and yet I fly Spirit with some frequency.
Might just be my location but their route network is fairly weak, IMHO. Not sure how many people status would be useful for, since I fly out of a major metro.
Would love pointers to good value if anyone knows of some!
Just flew PHL-MCO with my kids + 3 checks bags and paid <$100 total given status matching. Frontier is definitely underrated for this sort of thing!
As a Hyatt Globalist I matched at the 50K level, but was given an offer for $500 to make the 100k status. We have at least three trips where the perks will make the upgrade a bargain for us (two four person trips and one 8+ person trip.)
Ross, that’s interesting, thanks for the data point.
I did the $149 100k match, happily paying the extra $50 for having done it last go-around. I’m CLT based, and will only use this a few times at most–but still consider the investment well worth it.
A while ago I posted a message asking about a short (45 minute) transfer at DFW late at night (1030 pm). We rolled the dice since we were moving and staying where we were would have meant a night in a hotel anyhow and our cars had been shipped.
Turns out the AA flight to DFW arrived a good 20 minutes+ early (we had a great FA in first, Annie) so we had no issue making the connection (less motivated FA on that flight).
Once you get off the plane just walk to the skylink and ride it to the nearest stopping point and go to your gate. From gate to gate it is probably no more than about 15 minutes maxed and possibly 10 minutes or less depending on how far you have to walk to catch it and how far you have to ride it.
Obviously if you sit in the back of the plane and with how early AA closes the gate (15 minutes early?), 45 minutes is probably the least amount of time I would want to try.
There’s only one problem: you have to fly Frontier!
I have Elite 50k with Frontier and for what it is, it is great value. Free carry-on, free Stretch seating at booking. It beats Southwest, other than getting 4 fake cheez-its and a couple pretzels and a mouthful of soda, any day even in comfort. And at sub-$20 to fly CLT-MCO, PHL-CLT, CLT-CLE, CLT-TTN, etc., it’s only a 90 minute flight and I don’t worry about throwing the odd flight away and being out $17.
Spirit Gold (they don’t just comp as easily) is better with a free drink and snack on board and free carry-on/checked bag AND a dedicated phone line that gets answered usually with only a few rings (only WN and AS tend to answer as fast, the UA 1K line certainly doesn’t). Bid for a Big Front Seat and flying a 2 hour flight for $50 all-in in a big seat, cheap fast wifi, and the free bags/drink/snack, it’s practically First Class on American.
Except for the horrid WC’s, flying Frontier nonstop between DFW & SFO has been no worse than AA, and at half the price! Plus, they use international A at SFO, which is much nicer and more convenient.
What’s the income profile of readers of this blog? Is it now $20,000 / year?
I always assumed that most readers earned enough to drive nice cars and fly nice airlines. And these know very well that value ≠ cheap.
Used this exact match and perk recently (after seeing Richard’s tweet). We have a trip coming up over spring break next year (8 traveling in our party) to a popular spring break location (2.5 hr flight). Ended up saving approximately $3,000 total for our tickets (with full refundability, seat selection and free checked and carry on bags). Not super thrilled about traveling Frontier, but I’m definitely willing to give it a shot for that type of cost savings vs the legacy carriers.
I did this two years ago for my local airport to fly nonstop to Disney. I thought it was amazing. Dirt cheap flights at my airport 15 minutes away instead of driving 1.5 hours.
I did two roundtrip flights with Frontier with this status before I wrote it off as “never again”. First trip, our return flight home was straight up cancelled on our way to the airport. No other flights that day, or for 2 more days. I ended up booking us all on a Southwest flight to a different airport for ~$1600 and had a friend pick us up at 3AM. It took 6 months for Frontier to refund me that $1600.
Next trip, our flights were cancelled again, however with a few days notice. We were able to rebook and fly in order to use up the credit Frontier gave us, however this has me too scared to ever fly with them again. It seems their flights from regional airports are few and are the first on the chopping block when there are issues at the airport. It was an awful 24 hours scrambling to try to find a way home, and an awful 6 months trying to get my $1600 back that Frontier promised me.
I wish the experience was better as we go to Disney regularly and they have a nonstop flight so close to my home, but I’ll stick with Southwest.
Please stop encouraging people to do this. I imagine there may be a fortunate few that will benefit from this program BUT I can’t understand how. I was a top tier elite member all of 2022 and my travels with Frontier cost me dearly. I lost money on hotel stays, car rental rebooking fees, required food purchases, Yea I know a person has to eat no matter they are, taxi service to get to all those places you need to go when plans change and the time it takes to redo all of this BECAUSE of the constant schedule changes and cancellations by Frontier. I have claims for reimbursements that require rediculous verification that once submitted are rejected for “fuzzy” copies and when asked to allow these documents be physically be mailed they respond that that is not policy. Customer service is nonexistent with Frontier. Even ticket agents refuse to look you in the eye while telling you that your flight has been canceled. If you’re lucky this will happen at your home airport, otherwise it could be days before another flight is available. FRONTIER IS THE WORST AIRLINE IN THE SKY. Don’t do this, you will be sorry. When it works, it is great. When it doesn’t, it is hell. I was glad when 2022 ended.