Spirit Airlines $69 Round-Trip Promotion ~ Gone Too Far?

Spirit Airlines is pushing a new $69 round-trip promotion. The racy promotion is enough to make some customers blush and cause others to boycott the airline. The email was so raunchy one Gloucester County woman thought she was hacked. However, the shocking email was actually an advertisement, filled with sexual innuendo, sent to her by Spirit Airlines. The ad has some customers fuming.

"We've been waiting to hit 69 planes for years. It's our favorite number," the ad reads.

Cheryl Neely could only blush reading the email she got yesterday.

"My jaw dropped," she said.

The New Jersey mother was floored when she realized the email from Spirit Airlines, which promoted $69 flights.

 "I didn't sign up to get Playboy or Playgirl," she told FOX 29.  "I signed up to get the emails for special airfare. Receiving emails that are sexual in nature is not what I signed up for.

Members like Neely actually pay Spirit Airlines $70 a year to get these emails-offering lower fares. Neely isn't the only one to notice. Twitter exploded with reaction. Neely says she called Spirit customer service to complain but says an agent wouldn't even take her number. Coincidentally, Neely's membership in the Spirit Airlines club expired today. She hasn't decided whether or not she'll renew.

"I personally think it's a poor business practice. They should have higher standards and higher respect for their customers," she said.

Spirit spokesperson N. Paul Berry sent KMSP the following statement Tuesday evening, long story short, the promotion is legit:

"It's a real promotion. It's not atypical for us to have these types of ads.

Spirit isn't your typical airline. In most cases different means saving our customers a lot of money on their air travel. When it comes to advertising, different means we don't spend a lot of money on advertising, because that just increases fares. But we're also different because our ads are fun and often irreverent.

The goal with our marketing is to provide information about our low fares to our customers, in a unconventional manner, without the ads costing so much that we need to increase fares to cover those costs. 

We have a long history of taking major, national news stories, or just things we like to have fun with and connecting them to our marketing. The vast majority of our customers think they're funny, and accept them for what they are. We realize and accept that a small group of people might not think the same way.

Cheers!"


What is your opinion? Have they gone too far? Do you find this add offensive?