Spirit Airlines celebrated its second round of Miami launch flights with a really unique promotion of spontaneous flight giveaways.
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Spirit Airline Miami Expansion
Spirit Airlines has now completed its launch of flights from Miami with 32 destinations served from its secondary South Florida airport, just under 27 miles from its Fort Lauderdale base. The ultra low cost carrier is no stranger to new markets, adding several since 2019 and with each, a handful of destinations are offered. Spirit’s Miami expansion was a far more extensive endeavor and directly targeted American Airlines who also operates a hub at the airport, one of its most substantial presences in the United States.
What makes the Miami addition so interesting is that much like operating a metro with distinct cities and airports it’s less about a new destination and origin and more about offering more flights to a different segment of the same market like Newark and New York JFK. But unlike the New York metro airports which are often grouped together, Miami and Fort Lauderdale – which are closer than Newark and either Laguardia or JFK – are shopped separately by-in-large.
Spontaneous Trip Giveaways
To celebrate the completion of its 19 new routes from Miami, the airline offered “Spiritaneous” flights for guests who have a sense of adventure.
“Participants may enter the Spiritaneous giveaway between 8-8:30 a.m. EST on Wednesday, Nov. 17, near Spirit’s counter in Concourse J, inside Door 33 on the first floor. Nineteen pairs of winners will be selected at random and can fly to most nonstop destinations that Spirit serves from MIA on Nov. 17.”
Guests were instructed to come to the airport with their bags packed and ready to go. Each of the 19 winners would receive a pair of tickets, a checked bag and a carry-on included – taxes and fees included (and presumable seat assignments.) Flights departed from three hours later through the end of the day.
Just for showing up, entrants would recieve 1,000 Free Spirit bonus points for joining the program as part of the celebration. I asked Spirit’s Director of Communications, Erik Hofmeyer, about the promotion. He indicated that after the last couple of years Spirit wanted to “put the fun back in travel.” This is the easily the most interactive, and fun promotion I have seen from an airline all year.
My Dream Come True
When I was about 12 years old, I took a trip with my Dad to the airport to pick up a relative. Though the small airport was across town and didn’t result in me taking a trip, I would jump at the chance to take the ride with my Dad just to see the planes, grab a timetable or ticket jacket, and soak in the atmosphere.
On this particular occasion, I was waiting in baggage claim which was next to ticketing at Omaha Eppley Airport. Two guys walk in the doors with no bags and look up at the departures board. They are having a chat and then I pointed these newbies to the arrivals board so they would know where to find their party.
They weren’t there to pick anyone up, they just decided they wanted to go somewhere, had no idea where and were just going to buy a ticket to a random destination and see what happens. They settled on Las Vegas (big surprise), bought the tickets at the counter, and headed to security.
I fell in love with the idea of just showing up to the airport with no idea where I would go, when I would come back, and what I would do, but just let adventure take over. When my wife and I were dating, we missed a flight and instead of connecting in Madrid, we flew to Barcelona with no idea about the city at all. It became one of our favorites ever, and partly because we had no prior expectations. Adventure is what happens after the planning stops.
This promotion is my dream come true – and frankly, maybe we should just head to Miami or Fort Lauderdale and do this without the Spiritaneous promotion.
Conclusion
“Spiritaneous” was an exciting promotion that sent 19 winners and their travel partners off to one of Spirit Airlines’ new Miami destinations. It adds some excitement and adventure back into the travel experience while highlighting Spirit’s Miami expansion.
What do you think? Would you have headed to the airport with bags packed, ready to fly? Have you done that before?
2nd place is 2 spontaneous trips on Spirit.
This would be a great opportunity for a homeless shelter to try and get rid of some “problems”.
Right, I don’t see anywhere in this article saying these are roundtrip. I’m curious how many would show up. They aren’t giving away any spending money, are they?
It must cost nearly nothing for Spirit, as they’re giving away distressed inventories, and I doubt they have much walk up last minute demands. I don’t know why other airlines haven’t done this already, very innovative indeed.
@Hibiki – They were roundtrip and the airline provided no spending money. I agree, however, that every carrier should do this.
I was a winner of an instant vacation for the weekend to Tampa in 1999 at a Pittsburgh Pirate game. If you were interested you got to go on the field and if your name was drawn they put you in a limo, handed you plane tickets, a tour book, and hotel reservations to whatever city you won for and whisked you off to PIT. So my friend from college and I spent 48 hours on a free weekend in Tampa. It was a blast but we did it last minute so no clothes, luggage, or anything!