Unlimited Flights for a Flat Fee: Is It Worth It?
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Here's your money briefing for Thursday, July 6th. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. It's getting more and more expensive to fly. What if you could take unlimited flights for a flat fee?
My schedule was very flexible. I wasn't trying to go to a wedding in Des Moines or catch fireworks somewhere. I went with an open itinerary just to see where I could get to and couldn't get to.
WSJ travel columnist Dawn Gilbertson recently spent several days on domestic and international flights to test out the all-you-can-fly program offered by Frontier Airlines. And she'll tell us how it went after the break.
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Frontier Airlines has been promoting its Go Wild Pass that lets travelers go anywhere they want, in some cases for just a couple hundred dollars. But what's the catch?
What is Frontier's Go Wild Pass and who is testing it?
Wall Street Journal travel columnist Don Gilbertson recently put the airline's all-you-can-fly pass to the test. So, Don, first of all, what does the pass allow and not allow passengers to do?
Anybody who's tried to book a last minute flight knows that those flights can be astronomical. You buy the pass and then you can buy domestic flights a day before and international flights 10 days before. So it's really for people with ultra flexible schedules.
Ah, so if spontaneity isn't your thing, this might not be for you.
Oh, 100%. This is not for you. I mean, there's an entire Facebook group devoted to this pass, and you can just tell from going through it that a lot of people did not read the fine print.
So why'd you do this?
They were hawking it big time last fall, and they've continued to keep promoting it as a way to fill seats last minute, especially during slower periods. Obviously, we're not in a slow period right now. So I just wanted to see how it was going to work in practice. And so we bought one last fall. The pass did not kick in until this spring, and I wanted to wait until summer to really see, can you use this pass? If you bought this pass as a traveler, can you use it this summer? And I was able to use it.
So you used the pass in June. How many flights did you wind up taking?
I booked seven trips. It was nine total one-way flights because I had a couple connections just over the course of a week. And again, my schedule was very flexible. I wasn't trying to go to a wedding in Des Moines or catch fireworks somewhere. I went with an open itinerary just to see where I could get to and couldn't get to.
What does the pass cost and how does the cost of flying last minute with the pass compare to flying last minute without it and having to buy a ticket?
Two things. One, the pass cost me, I bought the annual one last fall for $599. That is no longer available. The annual pass now is almost $2,000. But they also have a variety of seasonal passes. They have a fall and winter one. They had a summer one. But again, you buy the pass and you also are responsible for taxes on the ticket. And now the taxes aren't very much. I mean, the most I paid for taxes, I want to say, in an international destination was about $90.
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