Spirit Airlines expands on business-popular routes

That’s the spirit: Florida-based Spirit Airlines is in growth mode.

By Mark Chesnut

Low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines is introducing new service on a number of popular business travel routes — which may also be of interest to anyone shopping for a Las Vegas vacation or a Chicago vacation.

Among the airline’s fastest-growing destinations is Chicago; in August, the company launched new nonstop flights linking O’Hare airport to Boston, Dallas and New York LaGuardia, and also increased service to Detroit. On Nov. 10, new nonstop flights will begin between Chicago O’Hare and Orlando.

Las Vegas is alsoin growth mode on Spirit’s route map. In August, the company debuted two daily nonstop flights between Oakland International Airport and Las Vegas; service was to be upped to three per days on Sept. 7. Two additional nonstop routes from Las Vegas are also being added in September: San Diego on Sept. 7 and Portland, Oregon on Sept. 22. This is a relatively big jump in service for the carrier, considering that about a year ago, Spirit operated just four departures a day to two destinations from Nevada’s largest city. With the new service, 22 departures a day serve eight destinations.

Spirit passengers also have a new way to earn miles: The recently introduced Spirit World MasterCard credit card offers two miles per dollar on all purchases, as well as priority boarding and domestic priority check-in and 15,000 bonus miles after the first qualifying purchase. The card has no annual free for the first year. Spirit miles can be redeemed for awards with the airline as well as its partners, including Choice Hotels, Wyndham Worldwide and Hertz.

Related resources

• Boston hotels
• Cheap Boston flights
• Las Vegas hotels
• New York hotels

Mark Chesnut is a travel editor, writer and publisher of LatinFlyer.com, which focuses on leisure and business travel to Latin America.

Tagged: Florida, Las Vegas, Midwest