Spirit Tus Sank Tus
We had a great hyper-extended weekend in Chicago reconnecting with our daughter Monica and our two grandsons Bryce (11) and Braxton (8). We had fun, we laughed, we played games and even had a world class competition to see who could open the tomato sauce cans the fastest. Three each…whomever opened them fastest…the other brother would have to open the seventh can of Diced Tomatoes. Bryce jumped to the task and had all three of his open and ready in 1:02. After almost having to drag Braxton to the task whining all the way, he struggled to open one can, stymied with breaking the seal in the first can with the squeeze handle cutter. With a little help from Grandpa he then moved to turn the handle to spin the cutter around the circumference of can. We all laughed. Not at him, but with him. By can #3 “Brax” had mastered the technique but sadly tripled his big brother’s time. More on the visit later, here is the challenges we met with catching our flight home.
Coletta booked us through “Cheapo.com” and they set us up on Spirit Airlines. They get any more Spartan, passengers may board only to find THEY have to assume the roles of the missing flight attendants going through the safety protocol, checking peoples’ trays and seat belts, and handing out expensive snacks and liquid refreshments. You pay extra to bring more than one carry-on and personal item to be stowed under the seat in front of you, extra for picking your seat (Coletta and I “checked in” online at the 24 hour prequel and STILL ended up boarding last and finding our seats in the middle of two different rows 23 rows back). The plane boarded on time, pulled away from the gate on time and took off on time. This was 5:45 AM so not a lot of crowds in the airport though the flight was, “full.”
On the return flight…not so EZ PZ. We were booked to return on Tuesday the 10th, three days after our Saturday arrival. Dutifully we got online on Monday at 8:45 Central Time to secure our seats and boarding passes. The site would not give us a CHECK IN button, only CHANGE RESERVATION and CANCEL RESERVATION buttons . After trying on cell phones and laptops we tried the phone call. On hold for 15 minutes with Spirit Customer Service, we tried Cheapo.com phone contacts and Coletta got through. We had two main concerns: 1) Why our online check-in would not let us in to…well….CHECK IN! and 2) Why the itinerary we could view had two (2) dates and times, the 12-10-19 at 8:40 and an odd 12-11-19 date and time. WHAT? Maybe we were supposed to leave on Wednesday not Tuesday. No, we had the 10th on both our phones and on the check in Z7HUKB (memorized after inputting it 12,000 times to no avail). Turns out…with Cheapo Customer Service with Spirit on the other line…that Spirit CANCELLED our Tuesday flight and had us poised to go out on Wednesday. No earlier flights, no advance notice (though they did send us an email at 8:30 on the 9th fifteen minutes before checkin. Since we were poised, Webpage up ready to hit CHECKIN, we never saw the email.
After an hour of back and forth with me insisting we needed an earlier flight (nope) some form of compensation, a free flight or meal voucher or wider seat (Spirit is well known for their Spartan seats, no reclining, no seat back pocket, tray top the size of an iPhone 6+) they agreed to let us sit together in seats 3 B and 3 C nearer the front of the plane. Geez thanks!