The battle for your plane ticket is picking up, with ultra-low-budget airlines tweaking and expanding their services and loyalty programs in an effort to attract travelers.
Frontier Airlines on Oct. 2 launched a new, streamlined boarding process by expanding its boarding groups from four to seven. On the same day, Avelo Airlines premiered its new membership program, Avelo PLUS, with member-only pricing and free priority boarding, among other features.
Also on Oct. 2, Spirit Airlines, currently restructuring during its second bankruptcy in a year, kicked off a More Fly Points Promotion to offer travelers 5,000 free Spirit points for every roundtrip weekday flight and up to 2,500 bonus points for Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday flights. Points are redeemable for up to three one-way Spirit flights. In September, Spirit announced that guests booking flights using their branded Mastercard would get two checked bags for free.
Some airlines removing, restricting guest features
Not all the airlines are expanding their options.
In June, United Airlines started requiring all domestic passengers to be checked in for their flights 45 minutes before departure. Previously, check in for passengers without checked bags closed half an hour before departure.
Southwest Airlines is ending first-come, first-seated seating, launching a new group-based boarding process and adding conditions for plus size customers to get refunded for extra seats as of Jan. 27, 2026. In May, Southwest added a new Basic fare and started charging baggage fees beginning at $35 for the first suitcase, a major shift from the longstanding practice of allowing two free checked bags.
What is Frontier Airline’s new boarding process?
As of Oct. 2, Frontier flights will board in this order:
What is Avelo PLUS?
Avelo Airlines launched a new membership program, Avelo PLUS. Perks include:
Membership is $49 for the first year.
Is Spirit Airlines offering more points?
In Spirit’s More Fly Points Promotion, travelers can earn 5,000 Free Spirit bonus points per roundtrip Spirit flight completed on any day of the week and up to an additional 2,500 bonus points for roundtrip travel completed on Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday.
To qualify, guests must first sign up for Free Spirit or be an existing Free Spirit member and register for the promotion at spirit.com/promotion, then book and travel between Oct. 2 and Nov. 20, 2025. Every Free Spirit member in a reservation will qualify to receive the points, the airline said.
Airlines competing over South Florida routes
As Spirit drops airports and reduces flights to hit their cost targets in the restructuring, other airlines such as Frontier, JetBlue and Allegiant Air have been swooping in to pick up routes that Spirit has dropped.
Within days of Spirit’s bankruptcy announcement, Frontier Airlines announced 42 new routes, many of them at Spirit’s hub at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL).
JetBlue also moved in, with 9 new routes from Fort Lauderdale. Allegiant Air announced on Sept. 9 it was adding a Fort Lauderdale-Chattanooga, Tennessee route that Spirit was dropping.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Frontier, Avelo and Spirit airlines launch new services. Perks, what’s changing
Reporting by C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
