One of the major points of having your customers order online is supposed to be that it makes it a more efficient and convenient process for everyone. Not so at Spirit Airlines, which is now charging $10 roundtrip extra fee if you order your tickets online. They’re calling this the “web convenience fee.”

As Upgrade: Travel Better and Elliot.org point out, it’s just another way to try to recoup costs without having to increase the “landing price,” the upfront price shoppers see when they first encounter a merchant’s offer.

There are two ways around the fee. You can either purchase your Spirit airlines tickets at the airport, or you can buy them on Orbitz. There’s no “web convenience fee” for Spirit Airline tickets bought on Orbitz, and Orbitz’s fee is less than Spirit’s. Let’s just hope the other obsessively copycat airlines don’t pick this one up too.

Below, Spirit Airlines verbiage for the fee.

Convenience Fee of $5.00 per traveling customer per one way travel applies to all reservations with the exception of those bookings created directly at Spirit Airlines’ airport locations. All fares are subject to change until confirmed and purchased.

Money talks, B.S. flies [Upgrade: Travel Better]
Watch out — Spirit is socking passengers with surprise fees! [Elliot.org]

(Photo: Cubbie_n_Vegas)

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