Earn 5x Miles on Spirit Airlines
Spirit Airlines is offering its FREE Spirit loyalty club members an opportunity to earn 5x miles on upcoming flights. If you fly Spirit Airlines regularly, this is potentially a good deal. But if you don’t, or you don’t have (and use) Spirit’s co-branded credit card, you shouldn’t go out of your way for it.
Promotion Details
During this promotion, FREE Spirit members will earn 5x miles on all Spirit Airlines flights booked from now through August 18, 2020. Travel must be completed by February 9, 2021.
Members don’t need to register, but they must join FREE Spirit before booking flights. Members typically earn 1 mile for every 2 miles flown. Elite members and those with Spirit’s co-branded credit card earn at a 1:1 ratio. With this promotion, members will earn 2-1/2 miles for each mile flown, while elites/cardholders will each 5 miles per mile flown.
Miles Expire in Just 3 Months
Free Spirit works like any other frequent flyer program. Members earn miles by flying on Spirit Airlines, spending with partners, or using the co-branded Spirit World Mastercard.
But with Spirit, the miles you earn will expire in just three months. That sets the gold standard for stinginess among all airline loyalty programs. With others, miles either don’t expire or expire after 18-24 months of account inactivity. The good news is that members can extend their miles indefinitely by simply earning more miles before they expire.
How to Keep Your Miles Active
Unless you fly Spirit Airlines a minimum of once every three months, you’ll have a tough time keeping your miles active. So it doesn’t really matter how many miles you’re earning.
But Spirit has several partners you can spend with to earn miles and keep your existing miles active. Most major rental car companies are represented; plus, there are opportunities to earn by dining at local restaurants and through Spirit’s online shopping portal.
Spirit World Mastercard
The easiest way to keep your FREE Spirit miles from expiring is with the Spirit World Mastercard (application). The card offers 2 miles per $1 spent on everyday purchases. Card holders also get access to a limited number of award redemptions for just 2,500 miles, far lower than Spirit’s typical 10,000 mile redemptions. That means you could get a free flight after spending as little as $1,250 with the card.
Except for Zone 2 priority boarding, the card offers no in-flight benefits.
But it does make it easy to keep your miles active. You could set up a monthly recurring payment with the card, like your Netflix bill, and you’d be all set.
The card comes with a $59 annual fee that’s waived the first year. Plus, new card holders will receive a 30,000-mile welcome bonus — 15,000 with their first purchase, and 15,000 after spending $500 within the first three months.
The card is a good value in its first year, thanks to the welcome bonus and waived annual fee. But by the second year, you might be paying $59 a year mainly to keep your Spirit Airlines miles from expiring. There are better cards for everyday spending, and Spirit flights are usually dirt cheap anyway. I recommend you consider this card only if you fly Spirit Airlines regularly, and can take advantage of those 2,500-mile award redemptions.
Everything Else Costs Extra
When you buy a seat on Spirit Airlines, whether it’s a cash fare or miles, you get a seat and the space underneath the seat in front of you. That’s it. Everything else will cost extra, from the seat you select (free if they select for you) to carry-on bags.
You cannot purchase any of these extras with miles. So unless you’re traveling light, you will still need to spend some additional cash on your Spirit adventure.
Final Thoughts
Spirit Airlines is offering its FREE Spirit members a chance to earn 5x miles on their upcoming flights. No need to register, just book by August 18, 2020 for travel completed by February 9, 2021. If you have some Spirit Airlines travel coming up AND you can keep your miles from expiring, take the deal. If not, don’t worry about it. Miles only cover the base fare anyway, and that’s often only a fraction of your costs. Spirit makes its money by nickel and diming their customers on all the extras.