Is Frontier's all-you-can-fly pass a good deal? We tried it.
One late evening in August, I pulled up Frontier's website and felt the same surge of excitement and trepidation I experience playing video poker. I had a lot at stake on this game: the $599 I paid for the airline's GoWild! pass plus my bona fides as a budget traveler. Fittingly, the first flight I booked with the all-you-can-fly pass was to Vegas.
Last year, Frontier debuted the pass, which promised a year of boundless travel for a flat fee. The ultra-budget airline has since introduced several variations of the pass that all spin the same fantasy: Fly anywhere, anytime, with little financial outlay. However, because of the booking restrictions, assorted taxes and a la carte fees, using the pass is more complicated than it might appear.
"It sounds really attractive because the average round-trip ticket is somewhere around $400 domestically," said Kerry Tan, an associate professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland. "If I was an uninformed passenger, I would think that as long as I fly once, I'm winning."
Frontier frequently rolls out cheap promotions, such as fares from $19 or 99 percent off the base rate. Once you pile on all the extra fees associated with the pass, is GoWild! a better deal than the individual fares? I spent more than a week of travel trying to answer that question.
After flying to Las Vegas, Dallas, Cancún, Philadelphia and Orlando (twice), I figured out a way to make the pass work for you, but you must know how to outsmart the house.
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How the GoWild! pass works
For all flights, passengers must pay one penny in airfare, plus taxes and fees. Extras such as bags, seat selection and agent assistance bring additional charges and can far exceed the mandatory costs.
Per the rules, passengers can only purchase tickets the day before a domestic flight and 10 days before an international trip. The carrier offers early booking specials - for a fee, naturally. Holiday blackout dates apply, and there's no clever way around them.
Because of the restrictions, pass holders must be more than just informed; they need to be strategic. Some of the most convenient departure times and most efficient routes are not always available because of limited seat inventory or the tight booking window.
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Lesson 1: Lean on the Facebook community
On Facebook, one public group of GoWild! pass holders "devoted to making the most of unlimited travel" has 15,700 members. The page is a lively arena of questions, advice, boasts and meltdowns.
Before joining, I had stumbled around Frontier's site, bumping into obstacles like a wanderer in the dark. I came across international flights with no returns. Some destinations appeared in the search engine but were not bookable. Many layovers required an overnight stay. There were routes that geographically made no sense, including a 23-hour flight from D.C. to Atlanta via Denver.
"You get discouraged and you get mad and then you're not even using the pass. Then you join the Facebook group and you vent a little bit and realize that there are resources and then you're happy again, right?" said Brad Nelson, a San Francisco-based software developer who bought an annual pass. "I've seen a million people go through it. I went through it myself, actually."
The Facebook community provides valuable advice and support for newbies. They suggest searching for your flight a minute past midnight, when the "day before booking" officially starts. They share promotions for free baggage and advance booking and send reminders when the expiration date is nearing.
They also recommend the 1491 Club, a website that Nelson created after too many fruitless flight searches. Named after a typical Frontier fare ($14.91), the site streamlines the search process by displaying only viable options for a specific departure city and date. Since cracking the code, he has been jetting all over the country, visiting mom and Mickey Mouse.
"Now that I'm not spending all those hours in frustration, I fly everywhere," he said. "I have flown to Detroit four times now. I went for Mother's Day, just because my sister was like, 'Hey, we're doing something for Mother's Day,'" Nelson said. "I've done a day trip to Orlando. It was the price of an Uber - 30 bucks round-trip."
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Tallying the fees to fly to Vegas
For my first GWP flight, I played it safe. Frontier had blacked out three dates over the long Labor Day weekend. In addition to holiday vacationers, I would have to compete with pass holders who wanted to get out of town. By paying the $50 advanced booking fee, I knew that I wouldn't have to spend the last hurrah of summer in Washington . . . or Fargo.
The original flight I had my eye on - dinnertime departure, short layover in Denver, midnight arrival in Vegas - disappeared right before I was about to book it. So I snagged the next-best option, a connecting flight with a seven-hour layover in Denver.
Skeptical of my personal item's storage capacity, I gave in and purchased one carry-on. All together, the flight cost about $138. The non-pass discounted fare was only $25 more, without the restrictions.
"It's fascinating because people say, 'Ooh, it's special,' but they don't really think about it until they're in it, and then they're kind of regretting their decision," Nelson later told me with eerie accuracy.
But I didn't wallow in my missteps. The night before my departure, I checked the site and discovered the flight I had first seen was back. And, even better, it was $25. But, alas, not for me. Between the nonrefundable charges and the $99 change fee, the new flight would've cost me even more than my initial investment.
I admittedly used Vegas for its proximity to other places. The following day, I drove northeast to Zion National Park and Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. I didn't return until the night before the next leg of my experiment.
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Spontaneous trips to Dallas and Cancún
After my initial blunder, I resolved to fully embrace the spirit of the pass. I would let my adventurous id, and not my risk-averse ego, handle the plans.
From my Vegas airport hotel, I checked my options for the following day. I had two requirements: a nonstop flight that departed in the morning, because my patience with Sin City and long connections was running out.
Dallas answered my call with a $15 fare. I purchased a cheap ticket to the Texas Rangers-Houston Astros game. Then I booked a hotel with an airport shuttle and free trolley service to the baseball stadium, allowing my id a minute of gloating.
Before I could enjoy the game, I had to figure out my next move. I had my passport - one GWP tenet is to always be prepared for impromptu foreign travel - so I started looking for an international flight. Of Frontier's nearly 90 destinations, 10 are in the Caribbean, Bahamas, Mexico and Central America.
I could only find a flight to Cancún for the following day. The itinerary included an overnight through Orlando. During lulls in the game, I poked around for evening attractions in central Florida. This would be a pointless exercise, I later discovered, because I spent my night in Orlando sorting out the final leg of my journey.
One of the downsides of not living near a Frontier hub city is that it can take all day, and sometimes all night, to return home. I found a flight to Washington, but it included an overnight in Denver, an evening I'd much rather spend in Mexico. I searched for other airports along the East Coast, figuring I could always hop on a bus, train or another airline in a pinch.
I finally settled on an itinerary: Cancún to Orlando to Philly. I checked Amtrak and saw trains to Union Station. I booked the flight for $157, then tried to reserve a shuttle from the Cancún airport to my resort, but it required a 24-hour advance reservation. Because of my last-minute plans, I missed the cutoff time and had to pay twice as much for a cab.
I had just enough time in Mexico to unknot my lower back, which was starting to ache after so many hours in thinly padded plane seats, in the soothing Caribbean Sea.
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Seat upgrades and free coffee
Though I ended up spending hundreds of dollars in flight-related costs, much more than I expected with the pass, I had some moments of glory.
I never paid extra to select a premium seat, but I ended up luxuriating in my own row or an exit row. On two occasions, my ticket had exiled me to the last row, in a window seat without a window. In one case, the flight attendant took pity on me and moved me to an empty row. The other time, the crew member said he needed to keep that row open for medical emergencies and for the flight attendants whose jump seats were adjacent to the lavatory door.
In Orlando, Frontier had canceled an earlier Philadelphia flight and combined its passengers with ours. The gate agent asked for volunteers to sit in the exit row. I jumped up so fast, the whole row of seats shook.
As a low-budget airline, Frontier charges for food and beverages, with the exception of a complimentary cup of water. However, a kind flight attendant on my trip to Denver waived the price for a cup of coffee. "We're just going to throw it out at the end of the flight," she told me.
I also picked up a trick from a passenger sitting across the aisle from me. She ordered a cup of hot water, then rummaged around her purse and pulled out a tea bag. I tried it on my next flight and the next one. Only one flight attendant protested, but when I told her how cold it was in the plane, she softened and brought me the steaming water.
On many of my flights, I chatted with the crew about the pass. They gave me advice on destinations to visit (Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis) and skip (Houston, Orange County, Calif.). A Vegas-bound crew member named Troy fist-bumped me when I told him I was spending the week traveling on my GoWild! pass.
"You're the first pass holder I've ever met," he said excitedly.
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Is the pass worth it?
It depends.
If you are open to the unknown, live near a hub airport, travel light and don't have to be in a certain place at a specific time, then it can be. If you require advance planning, have an important event to attend, are not centrally located and require wardrobe changes, then maybe not.
The biggest gut checks were the additional expenses. I was prepared for the taxes and fees, which are minor, and the baggage fee, which I could have avoided if I were more of a packing ascetic. But I ended up paying for hotels and round-trip airport transportation in layover cities that I didn't necessarily care to visit or have time to explore.
I have eight more months left on my pass, so I have time to perfect my strategy. But until I give up on multiple outfits, Frontier will always win.
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