Cheating the Spirit online award booking system

This is what I'll call a "Spirit Secret!"

Spirit's award chart is distance-based. So, the award engine calculates the straight-line distance between two cities when generating the award pricing. However, the award chart prices scale faster than the distance does! This can be used to our advantage.

For example, the straight-line distance from New York City-LGA to Panamá City, Panama-PTY is 2209 miles.

2209 miles

According to the 2011 award chart, that means it should be a Region 3 award, requiring 7500 miles at the off-peak level.

You can see this reflected in the online award booking calendar as well.

However, it only costs 2500 miles for a flight from New York-LGA to Miami/Fort Lauderdale-FLL on the same day:

It also only costs 2500 miles for a flight from Miami/Fort Lauderdale-FLL to Panamá City, Panama-PTY:

There's more off-peak availability to Panama than to Miami!

That means that by booking each segment separately, you can save 2500 miles each way. That's a savings of 33% over the listed award price, for only a few more minutes of your time!

BTW, that trip normally costs $175.44. Backing out the fees paid on the award ticket, that means we're getting $139.19 in value, or 2.78 cents per mile!

That's an amazing return and a Spirit Secret!

Travel free!
~Free Spirit Travel