The Spirit award calendar glitch

When booking a Spirit award online, you'll see a month-view calendar of dates and rates. Sometimes, though, it doesn't look like anything's available at the off-peak level. That makes Free Spirit Travel a sad panda. :-(

Woe is Free Spirit Travel, there is no available off-peak award space!

At least, so it seems! Click on a few dates, though, and you'll find that the calendar misrepresents itself to users sometimes!!! No more sad pandas! Hooray!!!! :D

WHAT?!?!? In the calendar view, 37,500 miles is all that's listed, but clearly, there is off-peak availability on September 26 from Orlando to LA!

What I suspect is happening is that, as you can see in the second screenshot, the off-peak (read: cardholder) availability is being listed lower in the available flights/routes list, and the calendar only displays the top option in the list. So, Spirt really has a sorting problem, not necessarily a calendar problem. I've no idea what could be causing the bad sorting algorithm (who wants a three-stop flight for 37,500 miles one-way?).

There it is, folks, the Spirit award calendar glitch. For now, you've been empowered with the knowledge that you should click through the dates to make sure you don't miss anything. Other people don't know that, putting you at an advantage when searching for awards! Make some bookings, and know to watch out for hidden off-peak availability!

Travel free!
~Free Spirit Travel