14 Apr 2024   money travel
A few months ago, I booked round-trip Frontier Airlines flights at the airport to avoid convenience fees. (Yes, convenience fees, even though the process was more inconvenient for everyone involved.)
This past weekend, I took those flights. Here’s how each leg of the trip went:
SFO
to DEN
: Delayed by an hour due to a late-arriving aircraftDEN
to MCO
: Canceled due to weather–more on that in a bitMCO
to DFW
: On timeDFW
to SFO
: Delayed by an hour due to traffic control, taxied for an hour
upon arrivalYou get what you pay for, I suppose.
Regarding the second leg of the trip: weather was bad in Orlando, so it wasn’t surprising that the flight was canceled. What was surprising, however, was just how bad Frontier Airlines customer support was:
In short, Frontier Airlines stranded me in Denver with no easy way to rebook. In a panic, I searched for other airlines that might get me to Orlando in time for an event I was supposed to attend in the evening. United Airlines was the only option; they had a one-way flight for roughly $500. I winced thinking I’d need to eat that cost.
In a moment of clarity, I remembered that Bilt Rewards’ travel partners include United Airlines. I checked the price of the flight in miles: 15,000. I checked my Bilt Rewards balance: 40,000. As quickly as I could (because I was racing other people who were also looking for alternative flights), I submitted a request to transfer 15,000 points to United. Moments later, the points were in my account and I was able to snag one of the last seats on that flight, and with mere minutes to spare before the “one hour before departure” booking cutoff.
There are other interesting details to this story, like the fact that I ended up taking an earlier United flight than the one that I booked, but the moral of the story is that Bilt saved my butt. I’m really happy that I had the points on hand and that the transfer succeeded within minutes.
Mostly for my own memory, here are all of the ways I got lucky:
There’s also a lesson in preparation somewhere in here: