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Frontier Airlines announced an all-you-can-fly “GoWild” deal for the upcoming 2023-2024 travel year – but is it a good deal?
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Frontier GoWild! All-You-Can Fly Pass
Frontier Airlines announced its GoWild! all-you-can-fly pass that allows purchasers to fly all they want on Frontier but with some serious restrictions. For a base price of $799 (they have sold out the introductory pricing $599 offer) here’s what you get from Frontier:
“An unlimited number of flights
Flights are available 300+ days a year
Access to Frontier’s domestic and international destinations
Travel that will keep your miles from expiring
One low annual price for pass access to 12 months of travel
Get confirmed bookingsthe day before flight departure for domestic travel and starting 10 days before flight departure for international travel”
Getting into the specifics, here are all of the restrictions of the pass:
“Flights will be available to book and fly starting May 2, 2023
Flights can be booked and confirmedthe day before flight departure for domestic travel and starting 10 days before flight departure for international travel
Flights must be booked at flyfrontier.com
Flights are subject to blackout periods:
- 2023: May 25, 26, 29; June 29, 30; July 1-5, 8, 9; August 31; September 1, 4; October 5, 6, 9; November 18, 22, 24-27; December 16, 17, 22-24, 26-31;
- 2024:January 1, 15; February 15, 16, 19; March 3, 10, 15-17, 22-24, 29-31; April 5-7, 12-14. Blackout dates for May 2024 and beyond will be posted in advance of accepting any enrollments for pass periods which cover those dates.
Flights do not include anyadd-on products (like bags or seats), you can still customize your travel
Taxes, fees, and charges apply at the time of booking
A fare of $0.01 will be charged for each segment booked
Flights and seats are subject to availability; last seat availability is not guaranteed
Travel not eligible to earn miles or status
Travel qualifies as activity and will extend your FRONTIER Miles expiration
The GoWild! Pass is non-transferable. The pass holder is the only allowed passenger to travel with GoWild! Pass privileges.
Your Pass will automatically renew for successive one-year terms unless you cancel
You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the United States to enroll in the GoWild! Pass”
For review, you can’t use the pass until May 2nd, 2023 and there are 52 days during the span that are ineligible. Domestic travel is only available a day before departure, international only available 10 days in advance. Flights will still cost at least $20.21 per one-way segment for taxes and 1¢ fares including a carrier interface charge that starts at approximately $14.60 per person per flight (because flights have to be booked at FrontierAirlines.com and not at the airport.) Though they have a seat available, it may not be open for GoWild! passholders. Travel will qualify as activity but flyers will not earn miles nor elite status from the pass and flights. It’s only bookable for the passholder, extras like checked bags or seat selection are still extra, it’s only available to US adults, and if not canceled it will renew automatically at $1,999.
Practical Value
The value of an unlimited flight pass might seem like a good value, but is it? For Denver, Orlando, or perhaps Philadelphia or Atlanta flyers this might be a no-brainer simply because it would only take one or two trips using the GoWild! pass to make sense. But let’s look further afield.
We covered some secondary airports of size last week for a different purpose where Frontier would struggle to prove value with this offer. Even looking at heavier markets like New York, flyers would no doubt have to connect in Orlando andDenver too to reach destinations outside of the eastern seaboard. The fourth largest market in the country, Houston, serves just four destinations between two airports. Dallas has (11) including Cancun but every other destination will require a connection. If we look at the Los Angeles metro and even throw in San Diego, it’s just a handful of destinations without a connection.
But many flyers connect to reach their destination every day, why is that a big deal? It’s only a big deal because of Frontier’s concentration in Denver. My home airports are Pittsburgh and Fort Myers, Florida. I have a choice of six destinations if not connecting in Denver. However, connecting in Denver and opening the network requires a cross-country flight and sometimes long connections. Most searches resulted in day-long trips with a potential for overnights or redeyes to make it to most destinations. Obviously, a connection from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles via Denver is reasonable and logical, but traversing Denver from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, Dallas, or Chicago starts to thin the value quickly.
These are one-way flights, so the return is not guaranteed meaning you may not know when you can come back home. That’s a huge issue for most travelers and an unintended consequence of the deal though the limitation is in plain English, black and white on the website.
Frontier also doesn’t fly to and from all destinations they list. This may mean that flights going out on a Tuesday won’t come back for a few days, again, subject to availability and last-seat availability does not qualify. Some destinations are Saturday-only service meaning that visitors would have to wait a whole week if they are not able to make that return flight.
For retirees, with homes in a market where Frontier serves both non-stop, this could have a high level of value.
Conclusion
At the introductory level of $599, I could see the GoWild! pass making sense to a wider audience, but at $799 with the limitations, the black out dates, the connection struggles, it seems less valuable to me. Many readers have reached out asking if this is a good deal, and for our Denver flyers, I’d recommend it. But the impracticality of it outside of Frontier direct cities makes it a hard pass for most consumers.
What do you think? Have you considered/did you purchase a GoWild! pass from Frontier Airlines? How will you use it?
