Using My Spirit Miles...For Someone Else

A few months ago I stood in line with hundreds of other would-be-travelers to get certificates for 20,000 free Spirit miles in celebration of their new Houston routes. Including my parents, my family scored 100,000 free miles that day just for waiting in a pretty short line. It was great! Spirit is a very no-frills airline, but I didn't care. Free travel is free travel, and I was happy to try Spirit out for myself. My parents had already tried it out here and had no real complaints.

I knew that Spirit miles expire after three months of no account activity, but I wasn't quite sure how they manage that expiration. I had logged into my account and didn't see any evidence that they were about to expire even though I knew their time was probably short-lived since I got the miles back in October. Sure enough, I got an alert from Award Wallet last week that they will expire on January 31st. That meant I had to book a flight using them by that deadline. The flight didn't have to happen by then, but I had to commit to my travel plans. After looking at all the trips we are lucky enough to have on the books for the rest of the year, it was clear that adding another one just was not in the cards. Husband is maxed on vacations, our parents are maxed with keeping C while we go on some trips, and we are just maxed out in general on being away from home. It is a great problem to have, but the reality was clearly that we were not going to be able to use the free miles.

I played around a little and saw that you can use the miles to book a flight for someone else. Perfect! While I am lucky enough to have an over-filled travel schedule, I know not all of my friends and family members are in the same situation. I posted on my personal Facebook account that I had a few free Spirit flights if anyone wanted them. I honestly didn't know if I would get a response or not - sure enough within seconds/minutes I had a few different friends who were interested and within about 20 minutes one couple had lined up family members to keep their two young kids while they traveled, and they had found award availability to Vegas using my free miles. They haven't had a kid-free vacation in a long time, and I am so excited for them! Much, much better than having the miles expire unused.

I know some of y'all also got free Spirit miles, so in case you aren't going to be able to use them either, consider sharing them with someone else. To use them for someone else all you really need to do is delete your Spirit number on this page and then enter the other person's info. Also make sure to warn the recipients about some of Spirit's fees and how to avoid most of them (feel free to send them to my parent's trip review linked above that covers most of that info).

I know some people will likely comment that they wouldn't even want their enemies to fly Spirit, much less their friends. That's all well and good, but how insanely fortunate are many of us in the miles and points world that we are able to share trips like this with friends and family members. At the end of the day it is just an airplane that gets you from Point A to Point B, and as long as it is safe, that is all that matters. I seriously don't think that my friends are going to care that Spirit charges them for a drink. They are going to be thrilled to have a few kid-free days in Vegas where they can have some real drinks.

Never turn down some free travel - just be ready to share it with friends if you aren't able to use it. Have you ever been able to share some travel you weren't going to be able to use with friends or family members?

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