On April 28 my friends and I were supposed to return home from Cancun Mexico via Spirit airlines flight # 0286 that departed at 9:56am. Due to some issues at the hotel during checkout we arrived at the airport at 9:05am leaving about 50 minutes to get on the flight. We walked up to an empty Spirit counter to check in, but because we didn't show up an hour before the flight the representative told us that our seats have been given away to people on standby, even though there is a sign on the desk saying that passengers may loss their reservation if they don't show up 30 minutes prior to flight. We argued for a while and the representative didn't want to hear a word we were saying pretending to be busy with something else, so to get rid of us she just told us to wait till the next flight, there should be available seats for all of us. The next flight was at 12 pm and the one after was at 2 pm. There were no seats on either of the flights. So with hardly any cash and no place to stay we were forced to spend the night and sleep in the airport on the floor.
So after spending more then 24 hours in the airport we come up to the Spirit counter to finally hear a bit of good news. The representative tells us there are 3 seats available but there are 4 of us, so one would have to stay in he airport till the next flight. Ok so 3 of us pay $112 to get on the plane. A few minutes before they close the door on the plane, a flight attendant makes an announcement asking one of my friends to get of the plane because he is taking someone's seat who just arrived at the airport 5 minutes before the flight. That's funny, we show up 50 minutes before the flight and lose our seats, but this woman just shows up 5 minutes prior to the flight and somehow still gets her seat back. So now it just me and one other friend left on this plane going from Cancun to Detroit then a connection flight to New York.
When we get to Detroit we have another surprise waiting, turns out the representative in Cancun forgot to book us all the way through to new York so we have no tickets to get home and my friends bag was put on the plane thats going to New York even though were not going to be on it. We found the supervisor at the Spirit counter in Detroit and she explained that seats on this flight are not available because they have been sold to passengers on standby. My friend asked to get his bag of the plane but she told us it would be waiting for us when get to New York and we can pick it up at the airport. The supervisor took us to AirTran airlines to arrange for a flight and here are the options given to us, first option was to fly from Detroit to Orlando then from Orlando to fort Lauderdale and then to New York, thats 3 flights to get home. Then next option was to fly from Detroit to Atlanta and then to New Jersey and take a cab to get to New York. At this point we would anything to get home so we took the second option because there was less flying involved.
We finally got home the next day at about 2 in the morning and went to LGA airport to pick up my friend bags. It was nowhere to be found and no one wanted to help. We returned the next day and spoke to a Spirit supervisor, he said he was to busy and left the airport without helping us. We finally called Spirits main office and found the bag 2 days later. As for my two friends, one of them paid $340 to get another flight out of Cancun and ended up in Texas and then got another flight to New York. The other friend that was kicked of the plane was booked on the next flight to Fort Lauderdale and then to New York. The friendly supervisor in Detroit whose name is Irene gave us a bit of good news though. She said that because Spirit messed up so badly with the flights and the bags, they would give us free round trip tickets to anywhere they fly and get us a refund for the amount spent on getting a new flight. She also gave us some paperwork that documents the whole situation and shows how the flights were messed up causing all of us to miss a day of work, school or both.
I sent a copy of all this info to their main office and also email the CEO. So far I have not received a reply from either.
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