Climbing cancelation rates and delays are becoming “the new normal” for airlines as travel picked up and pandemic lockdowns ended. More and more people are becoming frustrated with flying, and a recent Frontier Airlines customer is calling out the company on its maneuver to attract more flyers.
TikTok creator Gabrielle Judge (@gabrielle_judge) uploaded a recent video, which has been viewed more than 17,000 times, claiming that Frontier’s GoWild! All-You-Can-Fly-Pass for the summer could be a scam. After purchasing the company’s pass for (it costs $499 as of this writing), st5xx6he said she was left with buyer’s remorse after seeing that she couldn’t use the pass on a flight she was attempting to book from Denver to Houston.
@gabrielle_judge The GoWild Summer Pass by Frontier Airlines is super disappointing. Ive heard Frontier is scamming people with their annual pass and summer pass in 2023. This is a ton of airline drama i didnt want to be apart of when planning my summer vacation plans. This is disappointing too because Frontier is supposedly from Denver yet i cant use their GoWild pass to get out of Denver. I just feel scammed @Frontier Airlines #travelreviews #gowildallyoucanfly #airlinehacks #frontierairlines #unitedairlines #scam #summertraveltips ♬ original sound – Gabrielle👸🏻
Frontier has received recent pushback for making passengers disembark from planes due to weight issues, sloppy operational practices, and forcing customers to pay for carry-on bags despite them fitting within their pre-sized bins used to gauge size.
The Daily Dot reached out to Judge via email for further comment.
“In May basically I paid for an entire trip to Orlando,” Judge said in her video about the summer pass. “We basically scheduled the flight the day before—flights are super crazy right now when it comes to price—so we paid for it in one flight. It is now the end of July, and I’m trying to use it again to go to Houston and seeing a lot of fishy stuff.”
She then goes into the “fishy stuff” that she’s talking about, showing how she’s not even given the option to book a flight on Frontier’s website using the summer pass.
“Typically [the summer pass] was a regular radio button that I could also select,” she said. “So say if the actual flight was $288, I would get an option that said [the flight] was like 90% off.”
“I tested out different airports with different dates. Then I tested the same airport with different dates, and it’s all giving me this not available error,” she elaborated.
After searching into the matter more online, Judge discovered that she wasn’t the only one with this issue: “And then I looked on Reddit and there was a lot of people that ran into the same issue.”
However, the TikToker read the terms of the pass and discovered that Frontier has pretty much covered their bases with this offering: “I also realized too that in their terms they’re basically able to just say like anything is subject to change.”
Judge went on to say that although she tried to contact Frontier Airlines to try and rectify the issue, getting in touch with the company was near impossible.
The influencer said that what was really saddening about her entire experience with Frontier Airlines is that she thought the brand was attempting to change its image and was excited to purchase the flight plan as part of this speculated re-brand attempt.
“And the f*cked up thing too is I went to their birthday party in Denver like maybe two weeks ago,” she said.
Judge expressed that she felt the company was being dishonest about its all-you-can-fly pass: “I just kind of feel lied to and I also just I don’t know, I’m just kind of frustrated and disappointed because flying this year is already such a crap show when it comes to flights and availability.”
Some commenters said that there are some stipulations to booking flights with Frontier’s passes, i.e., folks must book their flights within 24 hours of them taking off: “You can only book it the day before! So if you’re leaving Wednesday you have to check Tuesday starting at midnight for domestic flights,” one person wrote.
Another penned, “You can only book a domestic flight within the past 24 hours before your trip for an international trip, you can book one week out.”
There was another user on the platform who has the pass who also said that they’ve been having a difficult time using it: “Was a total scam. I bought the summer pass and it’s been awful so far.”
One commenter added that they’ve seen Frontier Airlines canceling flights even after folks have booked them using the all-you-can-fly pass: “If you do book it they have been canceling the flights. it’s something very fishy going on.”
“Frontier doing Movie Pass but scamming to get the money up front,” one commenter alleged.
Update 8:53pm CT, July 26: When reached for comment, a Frontier Airlines spokesperson told the Daily Dot the following:
“Scores of passholders successfully use their GoWild! pass every day to book travel. Passholders can book the day before flight departure for domestic travel and starting 10 days before flight departure for international travel. Passholders receive confirmed bookings not standby travel. The GoWild! pass is designed to provide flexible travelers with access to affordable, spontaneous travel. Tuesdays and Wednesdays generally have the most seat availability. Once booked, passholders enjoy the same day-of-travel experience as all other customers, including online check-in when available.”