Hi, everyone. It has been a long time since my last post. But today I had a bad experience with a budget airline and so I thought I would pour my thoughts into this post. We are traveling on Spirit Airlines for Spring Break. As the day of our departure approached, we realized that if we check bags earlier, it is cheaper than if you check bags at the counter. Spirit is one of many budget airlines and as the name suggests, these airlines offer cheap tickets for air travel. But where they get you is with additional charges for check-in bags and in the case of Spirit they also charge for carry on bags. Besides they do not offer a toll free customer service number. So I had to check in bags and Spirit charges anywhere from $20-$50 for a check-in bag. But Spirit is not the only one. Other major airlines charge baggage fees too (Last year, airlines collected $2.4 billion in baggage fees!!). But they don’t charge for carry on bags. On Spirit, charge for carry on bags is more than the charge for check in bags. Anyway, I got an email the night before my trip that my itinerary is pending and that I should call their toll number to resolve the issue. It was 10 pm when I saw this message, given that I was supposed to fly the next morning, I called them. I immediately got their menu and I was told that due to heavy call volume, my wait will be 20-30 minutes. The message also said that for faster service visit their website, but when I went to the website, I could not see any pending transactions. So I stayed on hold and after 40 minutes, I got a live person who told me that there is no problem with my itinerary. I was pissed. I gave the gentleman a piece of my mind and he apologized and encouraged me to complete their survey. I intend to do that, but I also felt that I should relate my story to a wider audience. Earlier in the week, I also had a problem with adding our frequent flyer numbers and when I called Spirit, I was on hold for 20 minutes. On both occasions, while I was on hold, I kept getting a message that it is easier and faster to visit their website. Unfortunately, I could not resolve the issue on the website and so I had no choice but to call their toll number.

Another airline that started the budget trend was Ryan Air. Last year we went to Spain and Portugal and on one of the trips we booked tickets on Ryan Air. Their base fare was 25 Euro. But charge for checking a bag was 50 Euro, charge for reserving a seat was 25 Euro, so my 25 Euro fare actually ended up costing me 100 Euro or $113. But the kicker is that Ryan Air does not allow you to check-in at the counter for free. We did not know that and unfortunately we had a rude awakening. The Airbnb we were staying at did not have good wi-fi and so we did not check-in online. As I said the next day when we went to the Ryan Air counter they told us that it will cost us another 50 Euro per ticket for check-in. Also, the ticket agent is not equipped to take money from you so you have to go to Ryan Air’s service counter, pay the fees and take your receipt to the ticket agent. Now I realize that as a buyer, I should be aware of the airline policies and I did not check their policy. The moral of the story is, budget airlines are not necessarily budget and that buyer beware. Please comment with your experience and also share this post. Thanks.