I recently wrote about why I paid $149 to status match into 100k status of Frontier airline, which, according to a recent study, is the worst airline of 2023 (Business Insider).
I will start by saying that I have been booking Frontier flights for a family member for almost 2 years but I myself only flew with them very recently. The reason I pursued a status match is that I assisted my family member with a status match almost two years ago, and their experience for the last 2 years has been satisfactory.
Anyway, let’s talk about the Frontier’s GoWild Pass. The target audience of this pass is people who are retired, work remotely, or people who have lots of flexibility with their time (like students during the summer). There are blackout dates and to leverage the full discount of GoWild Pass you need to book the flight 1 day prior for domestic or 10 days prior for international. If you book within this window, then a non-stop domestic flight costs 1 cent ($15 with tax). A flight with a stopover will cost $30 but I strongly advise against choosing Frontier for such flights unless you’re comfortable with the possibility of getting stuck in the stopover city.
https://www.flyfrontier.com/deals/gowild-pass
Without even flying Frontier, in late October of 2023, I considered buying the Fall and Winter Pass (valid from September 2, 2023 to Feb 29, 2024) for a discounted price of $299. It almost made sense until I recalled Frontier is notorious for changing and canceling existing routes. After checking Frontier’s website and a few others, I couldn’t find a nonstop flight for a few routes I frequented past December 2023 which made me choose a monthly pass at a discounted rate of $49 for the first month.
As of writing this post, I’ve flown twice with $15 tickets each time. I was seated in a stretch seat at the front of the plane for both flights. I also plan to (if things work out) take a few more flights before the pass expires.
So, was it worth it? Running east to west coast flight for $15 bucks each while having plenty of legroom? Well, yeah. Am I going to renew it for a monthly cost of $149 per month? Nope.
Closing Thoughts
The key thing with the pass is knowing how busy the routes are, especially on the days you want to fly. Typically from my 2 years of booking Frontier, stretch seats (even in the first three rows) are available even 24 hours before check-in time. This means all you need is 20k status (soon to be called Gold status) to pretty much always score a stretch seat.
Technically, Frontier has changed the GoWild pass to allow booking past the 1-day window but you will not get the full discount when doing so (for example, you will not get $15 for a nonstop domestic flight if you use a GoWild pass to book a flight that is flying past 1 day).
P.S. If you choose to get this pass (which is NOT for everyone), please cancel it in a timely manner and then watch it like a hawk. Frontier is infamous for enabling autorenewal even after you cancel the pass lol.
