What to do about Spirit

Howdy, friends, and welcome back to your favorite travel newsletter. We’ve got some tragic news from the airline world as Spirit Airlines filed for bankruptcy.

I’m sure many of you are wondering what exactly this means, so let’s have a little chat:

• 🤔 What to do about Spirit Airlines?

• 🏨 Marriott’s new cyber sale

• 🤣 Travel meme

🤔 What to do about Spirit Airlines?

So yeah… the big news of the week is that Spirit officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Womp, womp.

But don’t freak out just yet… in case you weren’t aware, pretty much every major U.S. airline (including Delta, United, and American) has done this in the past… and look at them now. They’re PERFECT.

Spirit has released a ton of information about what this means, and here are the highlights:

• Things will operate “normally” moving forward

• Points can be used as normal

• Credit can be used as normal

• Their co-branded credit cards won’t have any major changes

And the big question… are they going out of business?

Well, I’ll let them tell you:

If you want to read more on your own from their public details, check out this dedicated site that Spirit made.

And if you want the not-so-public details… 😏

Here are some slides that were leaked and posted on Twitter for what their plans are to get out of bankruptcy.

Basically, they want to do the following:

• Revamp their business model to align more with the big boy carriers like Delta, American, and United, and

• Shake up their route network to focus on the most profitable routes and cities.

Overall, this actually could mean a much better overall guest experience. On SPIRIT.

Specifically, here is a slide that highlights their plans to “elevate the guest experience,” with some of the important proposed changes boxed:

As you can see, there are some potentially exciting things (other than what’s already been implemented), like:

• Introducing a premium economy cabin with the middle seat blocked

• Providing water and snacks to all passengers

• Improved service in the event of cancellations and delays (this is partly because it’s now the law)

If all of these changes take effect, Spirit will look a lot more like the legacy carriers in the U.S. rather than a budget airline where you buy a cheap flight and pay for everything else.

So - what should you actually DO right now?

Well, here’s my advice:

I don’t think there’s any reason not to fly Spirit in the immediate future, especially if you live in one of Spirit’s hubs… in fact, you might see some of their more popular routes INCREASE in frequency rather than be pared back.

Furthermore, I don’t think you need to go burning your Spirit points (although I wouldn’t blame you if you did) or avoid them altogether.

Looking forward, however, one thing we know for sure is that they plan to change their route network, which is also highlighted in one of the slides from the aforementioned Twitter leak:

When exactly will they start cutting routes? Well, dude, we just don’t know (bonus points to anyone who gets that reference).

But given Spirit’s terrible on-time record during peak holiday seasons, I’d recommend avoiding them over the next month and a half anyway, especially if there’s a risk of routes being cut.

If you do book with Spirit in the near future, having travel protections is going to come in handy.

Having a premium credit card with travel protections will give you an added layer of comfort in the event that something does happen.

Personally, I book a lot of my travel expenses with this card because of its robust protections.

So here’s the bottom line:

It could take years to go through all of the bankruptcy proceedings. During that time, Spirit plans on “business as usual.”

In the end, Spirit could come out on the other side as a much stronger airline with a bright future.

Or, you know, it could die and be gone forever. We just don’t know. 🤷🏼‍♂️

🏨 Marriott’s new cyber sale

Phew, that was a doozy, eh? How ‘bout something a little more straightforward?

Marriott is having a Cyber Monday sale! Yay!

For a short time, you can get a 25% discount on Marriott stays.

Here is how you do it:

• You must be a Marriott Bonvoy member

• You must book your stays in the Marriott APP between November 26th and December 3rd

• Valid for stays between December 1st and January 20th

• Valid for over 7,000 Marriott hotels worldwide

Just yesterday, I told you about a similar sale offered by IHG that was valid all the way through April, so Marriott’s shorter window is a bit disappointing.

But Marriott being less generous than every other company in the world isn’t news.

Damn... that was a sick burn, if I do say so myself. 🔥

Anyway, 25% off is still awesome for Marriott loyalists like myself.

The sale doesn’t start until November 26th, so I can’t show you any specific discounted rates just yet.

But let’s say you want to head up to Tahoe this winter and hit the slopes (which would be totally tubular, dude 🤙).

You could book this Marriott hotel for $132 per night right now and theoretically just $99 per night with the upcoming sale.

That’s not bad at all!

If you’re more of a hot weather fella, you could fly south for the winter and instead book a hotel like this one in downtown Miami.

With the sale, this would only cost about $115 per night, which is not bad at all for Miami in December or January.

Of course, if you do book a Marriott hotel with cash, you’ll want to use a card that earns a lot of Marriott points to maximize the return on your spending, so check out some of our favorites here.

So here’s the bottom line:

Now is a great time to lock in hotel deals for the coming months, thanks to some excellent sales like this one from Marriott.

Now we just need to wait for Hyatt to follow suit… 🤗

🤣 Travel meme

This one’s for all you badass female solo travelers out there!

That’s all for today, folks! I know Spirit generally gets a bad rap, but this could actually be really exciting if they come out on the other side.

While it’s a bummer to lose a budget airline, I think it would be even more exciting to see another major player emerge out of this.

Anyway, take care and see you bright and early tomorrow!

Love you,

39.9042° N, 116.4074° E