www.CostaRicaTicas.com

When did this start?! I just booked an upcoming trip to CR on Spirit, and they are charging for pre-selecting your seats. The last time I flew, about five months ago, this was not the case. Are other airlines doing this?
They are charging $7 for 'middle' seats, $12 for aisle and window seats, and $20 for the row where the emergency doors are located. Who would pre-select a 'middle' seat ($7)? I'm thinking I might pre-select a seat in the emergency door row, because of the extra leg room. It's ridiculous. Instead of charging extra for checked bags, pre-selected seats, etc, why not raise the price of the ticket? I suppose that would be too simple.

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"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile, and the rest of us are phucked until we can put our acts together; not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely"...Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)

It's Spirit. They are dirt cheap on their tickets but charge you for everything else.

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Evidently, not dirt cheap enough.

I discovered this new hidden charge when I went to book my upcoming trip. I don't remember them having it when I went down last July, but evidently they started doing it some time since then AND even raised the amount the charge a couple of weeks ago from what they charged initially.

I usually start out by using a search engine to find the lowest flight and then go to book directly at that airline's website. Plus with Spirit you can scroll forward or backward a day at a time to help find the cheapest flight dates. Well I found what appeared to be the most affordable flights for the days that I could go and went through the process of booking. It wasn't until AFTER I had entered all my personal info and cc data and I was going to pick my seats that I discovered about the seat selection charges. That's $48 total extra for the 4 flight legs between TPA>FLL>SJO and back. Screw that. I went back and wound up booking with American for not that much more than Spirit's BASE price and certainly much less than their TOTAL price including the seat selection.

What kills me is that they don't advertise this hidden charge ahead of time and I had to go through all the bother of entering all my info before I discovered it. What good are the airline search engine sites for comparing fares if they all have different hidden charges? I suppose things like drinks and meals and checked luggage are also extra on many airlines but the difference is that those charges pretty much apply to most airlines at this point and that, for me at least, those are benefits I can more easily forego. For a 2.5 hour flight, I can get my meals and drinks right before or after I go. And for a 1-2 week trip, I can manage with just a carry-on bag. And even if I couldn't we're only talking about $10 more for a checked bag both ways not $48 ). I suppose one could also wing it on the seat. Another CRTer, I forget who, told me they flew without a preselected seat and managed to get an aisle forward seat anyway. I also suppose that even if the flight was pretty full and I got stuck with a middle seat, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for just a 2.5 hour IF it meant saving a lot of money on the airfare. But with my AA airfare only $4 more than I would have paid for Spirit without any preselected seat, I'd rather pay that little bit more and go with the airline that include the option to pick your seat in advance without any extra charge for it.

I heard that Spirt is charging to use the toilet. Pete, can you hold it that long?

I booked on spirit with 3 other buddy's. No one got the pre-seating, I want to see what's going to happen. I really don't give a sh.. . My flight leaves to the promise land at 10-am. and I'll be drinking by 8-am so a bad seat for about two hours so what...

Spirit airlines ticket $219.00
Four beers and Four drinks on the plane $32.00
Not getting pre-seating and spending it on the Ticas...... Priceless

Spirit has done this flim-flam (charging for pre-selecting the seat) starting last August or September. I don't know why they hide it but this and other charges are back-end tack-ons so they can advertise the lowest price for getting your ass SOMEWHERE on the plane. My experience in October was OK and didn't pay this spurious fee. I still prefer them for flight times and airport choice, but damn, this is sleazy!

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Actually, the base price of the ticket was $10 MORE on Spirit than on American. I still went with Spirit because on the much more convenient departure and arrival times, in TPA and SJO. The next trip I may fly American, depending on my work schedule.

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"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile, and the rest of us are phucked until we can put our acts together; not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely"...Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)

can you pre-selec to insure that you don't sit next to some fat slob who takes half of you seat or a crying baby

Sure, you can select the "Big Seat"..of course that pprivilege is around $50 extra!

Another phucked up thing about airline pricing that I don't think is necessarily restricted to Spirit is how on a multi-leg flight such as TPA>FLL>SJO the price of the full trip in one ticket costs more than the sum of those individual flights if booked seperately. For example, on that $219 FLL>SJO airfare that ElCubano was talking about it would probably have cost well over $100 more if he wanted to start that trip out from Tampa on the same ticket but if you were to book the exact same flights seperately the TPA>FLL ticket could cost as little as $50.

Its tempting to just go ahead and book those tickets seperately. However, with just a 1 hour layover between flights on the way down (2 hours on the way back, I'd worry whether they'd do something to screw me up and make it impossible to make the connection (like having to go through security a 2nd time). Obviously, checking any luggage would be out though I usually just have carry-on anyway. Of course, I've done similar things before (flying on with seperate tickets on each leg) when I use to travel with TACA because I booked my TACA ticket directly with them and my TPA>MIA seperately with another airline, but I also left a safe buffer time between flights. Has anyone here done this with the Spirit flights.

GringoTim is right about the schedules. Spirit leaves TPA at 8:40AM and gets into SJO at 12:40 on the way down and leaves SJO at 1:30PM and arrives in TPA at 9:00PM on the way back. In contrast, AA's early flight gets into SJO an hour earlier around 11:30 which is good but you have to leave TPA at 6AM and with the "arrive 2 hours before" recommendation for international flights that is a killer time to have to get up. All their other flights take even longer or arrive in SJO late at night. On the way back AA has a MIA flight that leaves an hour earlier than the Spirit flight at 12:40 but they don't have any connections to Tampa that will put you into Tampa until close to midnight. And unless I leave my car at the airport and pay for parking, that all means I'll get a lot of grumbling from anyone I ask to give me a lift.

Talk about an industry that doesn't know how to run a business: Since airlines in the U. S. were started (generally conceded to be 1926), altogether combined they have lost money. Can you think of any other industry for which that is true? That's not Capitalism or Socialism, that's just flat-out Dumbism.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Prolijo...
I did that a couple of times about six years ago. I flew American (or US Air?) from TPA to MIA, then flew Iberia to SJO. I didn't have a problem either time. I think I allowed for a layover time of about two hours in Miami. I did it because Iberia was offering ridiculously low fares out of MIA.
Oh how I yearn for the days when Condor (German) flew non-stop from TPA to SJO. Damn that was nice! Condor flew from Frankfurt to TPA, then on to SJO. Sometimes the plane was only about half full (which is probably why they discontinued the TPA 'leg'). That was amazing...a 2 and a half hour flight direct to SJO, and the food was fantastic! And, the plane even had decent leg room. And, the price was only around $300, which was pretty good at the time. They only flew that route from about 1998 to 2000.

_________________
"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile, and the rest of us are phucked until we can put our acts together; not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely"...Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)

On my return flight on Delta, I paid $15 extra to get a "premiun seat" . My orginal seat was on the back row.

Gringo,
That's all well and good but 2 hours is the recommended standard for arrival before an international flight any way. In the case of Spirit, the time between flights in FLL is only one hour. If you fly on one ticket and got all your boarding passes in TPA, then you can probably go directly from one gate to the other in FLL without having to pass through security a 2nd time. OTOH, if you booked the 2 flights seperately, will they give you a boarding pass for the FLL>SJO leg when you check-in in TPA or will they make you go to the counter in FLL and have to pass through security again at that airport? If they do, will only an hour be enough time to do it?

I once did something like you did with Iberia only with me it was American Eagle to MIA and TACA to SJO. And I allowed 3 hours between flights. Well the American Eagle flight was delayed by about an hour. I didn't get to the TACA counter until a little less than 2 hours before the flight and they told me they couldn't check any one in any time after that 2 hour pre-flight mark because of the standard time it supposedly took to get through security. They wouldn't even ticket me and allow me to try my luck making it to the gate on time. To make matters even worse, there was very little that they could (or would) do for me not only because my missing their flight was caused by another airline and not themselves but because it was also on a seperate ticket. Something about how the airline ticketing rules work. As you may know, there are only 2 TACA flight per day from MIA>SJO. All they could do was to put me on the wait list for the next flight 12 hours later (non-priority). Naturally, I didn't get a seat on that flight either. Fortunately, American put me up for the night at the hotel at the airport for their part in my troubles. Unfortunately, I had to get up super early like 4-5 AM or something in order to enter my name on the wait list for their morning flight since they wouldn't accept any sign-ups the night before. Fortunately, I WAS finally able to get on their flight the next morning after spending a full 24 hours at the MIA airport.

My point is that was all because I tried to save a few bucks by booking my flights seperately. Even though I allowed a full THREE hours between flights because they were on seperate tickets my rights were severely restricted from what they would have been if it had all been on one ticket. If Spirit gets delayed getting into FLL, they may not hold up the SJO flight for that, but they'd have more obligation to try and get you on a later flight if both flights were part of the same ticket. And with just an hour between Spirit flights, I'd be a lot more confident if I knew someone had done it easily before me. BTW, that 2 hour layover on the return flight could be kinda tight too if there were any delays coming thru immigration and customs coming back into the US. Fortunately, IMHE, FLL is not nearly as crazy as MIA is in that regard and I think 2 hours should be pretty safe.

Tips from the frugal monger:

1. I fly Spirit all the time, use their Free spirit Card and thus a member of the 9 dollar fare club which entitles to me to all kinds of discounts and yes I have flown a few times to SJ for $70.92...9 + 9 =61.92 tax. Plus have flown 5 times on 25k mileage awards

2. Never preselected a seat and always was able to get an aisle or window at check -in. As long as you get to the arport reasonably early its probably not going to be a problem.

3. Only rarely check luggage. Except when I run out of SEX GREASE because the bottle is too big.

4. I fill 4 1.5 oz liquor bottles with my booze of choice (Spirit charges $7.00 per drink) and put it in the plastic back with my contact lense fluid, hand cream, cologne, toothpaste etc. Never had an issue at the security checkpoint. Yes I buy the 3 dollar can of soda for mixer..

Guys, you just have to roll with the punches and use your imagination.

PHX

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