[Rebecca Trieff]

I received an alert from Free Spirit, the online site which deals with frequent flyer miles, informing me that I had 34,000 miles to redeem. A big box containing the words "Book Flight" glared at me. I went through the whole procedure and was never given an opportunity to apply my miles. I returned to the Free Spirit home page, found nothing that directly told me how to redeem my miles but saw "Request Mileage Credit" and thought it might apply. This page required a confirmation number to get in, and I assumed (incorrectly as it turned out) that I would have to purchase the ticket and then request credit for my miles. This did not work out. I finally found out by pressing the "Help" button that I had to call to redeem my miles. This seems to me to be a rather obscure way of informing your customers how to redeem their miles, especially when a "Book Flight" box on a site devoted to frequent flyer miles is inviting you to book online. I called customer service. I was told I could cancel my flight and then use my frequent flyer miles to repurchase but that i would receive no refund because the flight was nonrefundable. I asked to speak to the agent's supervisor. She transferred me to a busy number and I was disconnected.
I sent an email complaint to customer service. i received a totally irrelevant reply that did not even address my complaint or request for credit. I wrote to the president of the company. I received a reply from Corporate Consumer Relations advising how to apply for frequent flyer mile credit. I sent another email stating I would love to apply my miles, and again asked that my miles be credited to the flight or that the transaction be cancelled so I could start all over. Spirit responded by assigning me a free seat on the flight. big deal! i sent a complaint to the Aviation Consumer Protection Division but learned they do not mediate individual complaints. Spirit may be cheap but i guess you get what you pay for!