I live on a cruise ship for half the year with my husband and it's often as glamorous as it sounds. After all, I don't cook, clean, make my bed, do laundry, or pay for food.
27.07.2023 - 18:33 / smartertravel.com / Tim Winship
UPDATE – Spirit apparently had second thoughts about the new size restrictions, and has elected to forego the changes reported in our article. According to a Spirit representative: “We had been preparing for a potential change in personal item sizes, however we decided a few weeks ago not to implement the change. While we always like to encourage passengers to carry less, we will continue to offer the largest personal size item of any ultra-low cost carrier.”
Spirit, widely derided by customers for its incessant nickel-and-diming, is at it again.
The latest ploy to separate flyers from their dollars is a niggling change to the maximum allowable dimensions for fee-free carry-on bags. But first, a quick primer on Spirit’s bag fees. Because Spirit does things differently.
As has become standard practice in the industry, Spirit charges extra for checked bags. Where Spirit differs from most other airlines is in also charging fees to carry one’s own bag onboard. That’s right: You’re charged for checking your bag, and you’re charged for carrying it on. You can’t win.
RELATED: Spirit Is Giving Away 1.6 Billion Miles. Should You Care?
But for carry-on bags, Spirit distinguishes between a personal item (a purse or shoulder bag, for instance) and a carry-on (a roll-aboard or the like, with a maximum size of 22x18x12 inches).
In the alternative universe of Spirit fees, personal items enjoy special status: They’re free to carry on. But, ever intent on maximizing fee revenue, Spirit is changing the rules, so fewer bags will qualify as personal items.
Beginning April 1, the maximum allowable size for a personal item will change from the current 16x14x12 to 17x13x8 inches. That’s a double-whammy for Spirit customers. First, the overall size is being reduced, from 42 inches (length + width + height) to 38 inches. And second, the new dimensions are less compatible with the profile of a typical shoulder bag. With a maximum width of 8 inches, many purses would fall outside the guidelines and be subject to a carry-on fee.
And those carry-on fees are hefty. For a test-booked Chicago-Dallas flight, the surcharge ranged from $26 if booked online to $100 if paid at the gate. That’s each way. For your slightly over-wide purse.
Naturally, Spirit provided no explanation for the change. That’s just what Spirit does.
Reader Reality Check
Would your personal item conform to Spirit’s new guideline, or would you be charged a carry-on fee?
More from SmarterTravel: JetBlue Cuts Legroom, Doubles Down on Distraction Delta Plans to Displace Elites with Paying Passengers in First Class These New Coach-Class Seats Are Actually ComfortableAfter 20 years working in the travel industry, and 15 years writing about it, Tim Winship knows a
I live on a cruise ship for half the year with my husband and it's often as glamorous as it sounds. After all, I don't cook, clean, make my bed, do laundry, or pay for food.
On Monday 14 August, when the tide is right, an antique sailing ship will manoeuvre through the lock of Plymouth’s historic Sutton harbour and point herself south-west towards the Canary Islands. It will be the start of a two-year voyage around the world taking in 32 ports and involving thousands of people in a groundbreaking geographical project, Darwin200, which aims, among other things, to inspire the environmental leaders and scientists of the future.
You can’t escape the orange. That’s what travelers this summer have been reckoning with — swaths of tangerine, traffic cone and burnt sienna on maps indicating record high temperatures around the globe. Four concurrent heat domes from the southern United States to East Asia descended on millions — Phoenix residents enduring 31 days of 110-degree-plus temperatures. Italians in more than a dozen cities under extreme weather warnings. And in South Korea, at least 125 people were hospitalized for heat-related conditions at the World Scout Jamboree.
It’s a bird; it’s a plane; it’s a flying restaurant? Acclaimed Dutch Chef Angélique Schmeinck has created quite a stir with her popular CuliAir Skydining, the world’s first hot air balloon restaurant, where lucky diners enjoy a three-course meal while floating in the skies above Holland.
Could Spirit, the airline everybody loves to hate, become a bit less hateful? If the company’s new CEO has his way, it will do just that.
For U.S. News & World Report, the road from weekly news magazine to publisher of company rankings has been a long and winding one. The key, though, to its shift toward data-driven ratings of companies and institutions was its 1983 publication of “America’s Best Colleges.”
U.S. commuters wasted 8 billion hours sitting in traffic last year.
Ever dreamed of packing up everything and moving to another country? Here are the most livable cities in the world, according to a study by The Economist.
The long lines, missed flights, and traveler outrage have been front-page news for months. And there’s little prospect that the bottleneck at the TSA’s airport security checkpoints can be ameliorated in time to for the summer travel crush.
Depending on your point of view, busier airports are either a blessing or a curse. For the Airports Council International, which just released its ACI World Airport Traffic Report, busy airports are a sign of economic vitality and consumer vigor.
Looking for a new museum to add to your travel to-do list? TripAdvisor (SmarterTravel’s parent company) has released the Travelers’ Choice Top 25 Museums of 2018, including the top 10 worldwide and the top 10 in the United States, with some surprising frontrunners. The findings also highlight bookable ways to see each winner—think VIP tours and scavenger hunts—with some offering the added perk of allowing you to skip the lines to get in.
I don’t suppose that most travelers choose their trip destinations based on a country’s happiness index. On the other hand, if they knew that Country A scored near the top of the happiness index and Country B scored near the bottom, it seems probable they’d be inclined to book their flights to Country A. Who wants to spend their vacation among unhappy people?