Spirit Airlines is Horrible

Man.

I get to La Guardia 2.5 hours early for my flight after walking around Times Square bored as hell by myself for an hour and a half on Tuesday.

I sit down at the gate and everything seems cool until they announce that New York-to-Detroit flight has been delayed. It was supposed to leave at 4:45p and will now leave at 5:30p. They announce that the passengers trying to make the connecting flight to L.A. will not be able to make it. Fuck.

I get to the front of the customer service line and she says they can't get me to L.A. until SATURDAY. They said that Spirit only flies out of each city once a day and every flight is booked full from NY to Detroit until Saturday.

Then she says they have no airline alliances so they can't put me on any other flights.

This is extra F'd up because the two Jewish guys in front of me had to cancel their entire vacation to California, assuming that they couldn't get there until Saturday (we were leaving on Tuesday). The lady also said she "didn't know" if refunds were available and if they were, they would take 7-14 business days to post.

I told her what if I go to Detroit and wait for a flight and she said I can catch the next day's flight out of Detroit, so I'd have to stay in Detroit overnight and then stay the whole day of Wednesday until the flight leaves for L.A. at 8 p.m., which I would much rather do. So I book a hotel room in Detroit. This other chick does the same thing.

So the lady at the NY desk (who was a moron) tells me I'll have to pick my bags up in Detroit and I'm like "obviously."

So we get on the plane and arrive to Detroit late as hell but the other chick tells me she's gonna run to the gate just in case the L.A. flight gets delayed, seeing as this is Spirit Airlines. I follow her and sure enough they haven't even started boarding. Great.

We tell the Detroit Spirit Rep what happened and she tells us that the NY lady took us OFF of the flight so we have no reservations. Luckily the Detroit Rep was like an angel at this point and got us on the flight, which had started boarding. I told her about my luggage and she said she'd see what she could do but I would probably have to make a claim for my luggage once I got to L.A. because the flight was about to leave.

The problem is I've already booked a hotel room in Detroit and I have no idea if my bags will ever make it to L.A. I call "Quality Inn" and they're very understanding and cancel my room with a refund. I think they know Spirit Airlines sucks.

So I get on the flight some chick is sitting in my seat. I'm thinking 'let me just put my bag in the overhead and I'll deal with this.'

Then as I'm putting my bag in the overhead, all my magazines and my book fall out and crash onto the chick, who acts like the magazine broke her wrist. Everyone is feelin hella bad for her and helping her and I'm trying to apologize and she eventually says she's okay, we won't need an ambulance.

At this point, this is my fourth flight on Spirit: L.A. to Detroit, Detroit to NY, NY to Detroit, and now Detroit to L.A. This is the third out of the four flights where someone has been sitting in my fucking seat. The other two times I let the shit slide but I'm not letting this one slide as every time I have given up the window seat that I booked on purpose. So I tell the injured blonde that she's in my seat and now the tables are turned. She is apologizing to me and I give her the boot to get the f--k out.

So now I'm sitting next to this 6'8" Canadian who explains to me that he killed time at the airport by doing double shots and gambling with other passengers. He sees that I'm reading a poker magazine and will not leave me alone, trying to get me to gamble on anything. He said he had five double shots at the bar in Detroit while the flight was delayed. I am trying to be nice to him but get him to STFU so I can relax. I love to gamble, but playing poker using the serial numbers on dollar bills, while using one number from the other player's dollar, is not my idea of fun.

The other shitty thing about Spirit Airlines is that they charge for everything outside of napkins and the restroom. Luggage is $10/bag, each way. Drinks cost, so do peanuts. But the drunk Canadian has figured out that the airline can't check your credit card while we're in the air, so if he uses a cancelled card he can order as many drinks as he wants at no cost. He has obviously flown on Spirit before because he uses the card for this exact reason.

Unfortunately he hit the "Service" button six times in a row and the stewardess got pissed at him and cut him off completely from alcohol after two beers. Apparently when someone hits that button repeatedly, it should only be for an emergency situation. Then the girl next to us starts arguing with the stewardess (who is a royal bitch) about cutting the other guy off. Now the entire flight staff hates our whole row because they think we're all together. The staff gives us an attitude every time they walk by and won't even accept an apology from the drunk Canadian, who was a really nice guy. They just roll their eyes at him and keep it pushing.

So basically Spirit Airlines has stupid excess charges that no other airline has, horrible customer service at the airport (except one lady in Detroit), horrible staff on the airplane and they only run one flight a day, which is a recipe for travel disaster.

Don't fly Spirit Airlines.