(DISCLOSURE: Frontier and Barclays hosted my family and I in Denver for the weekend to discuss these upcoming changes. The content below is mine and was not prescribed by Frontier, Barclays or anyone else)
If you’ve been paying attention to my Instagram feed this past weekend (and if not, why aren’t you following me?), then you may have seen that I’ve been in Denver the past few days with a few other family travel and miles and points bloggers (the folks from Mommy Points, Angelina Travels, Stuffed Suitcase, Award Travel 101 among others).
We were hosted in a few meetings with the folks from Frontier Airlines and Barclays, where they have been sharing some of the upcoming changes that they are about to announce with regards to the Frontier Airlines Early Returns loyalty program as well as the new Frontier Airlines World Mastercard. While I am not able to share the exact details on the new changes, I did want to talk about them briefly and share some of my initial impressions
Changes to the Frontier Airlines Early Returns loyalty program
Right now, the Frontier Airlines Early Returns loyalty program is…. not great. You do still get 1 Early Returns mile for each mile flown (instead of revenue based like most of the other US programs are. But it just doesn’t make sense to focus a ton on getting these miles, because generally the fares are so cheap cash-wise that it doesn’t make sense to spend 10,000 miles on a $39 ticket.
As far as elite status goes, there is only one level of elite status, and it is earned after earning 20,000 miles or 25 segments with Frontier
As I mentioned earlier, there are some changes coming. Frontier sent out an email over the weekend teasing the changes
In addition, they mentioned a few of the best parts of the program that would NOT be changing
So again, I can’t comment much past this, but I will say that although my expectations were fairly low going into these meetings, I was pleasantly surprised. Elite status and focusing on Frontier loyalty programs will not be for everyone for sure, and even FLYING Frontier will not make sense for everyone, but I can definitely see some areas where it will make a lot of sense
Changes to the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard
The current Frontier Airlines World Mastercard offers a welcome offer of 40,000 miles after spending $500 on the card in the first few months. The problem with getting a lot of miles as I mentioned earlier is that it generally doesn’t make a ton of sense to redeem 10,000 miles on a $39 flight. And then, as someone commented on our Facebook thread discussing the changes, on your “free” flight you will likely have to pay for seats, bags, food, etc.
Again, while I can’t share details at this time, I was pleased that there will be changes that will help account for these problems.
My initial impressions of the changes
It’s clear that flying Frontier is not for everyone, and this will continue to be the same. I’m fine with that because we don’t need another airline with an exact duplicate of all the other carriers. After all, it seems that Delta, American and United just seem to copy each others’ frequent flier programs :-D.
The changes will be formally announced later in June, so stay tuned to Points With a Crew where we will detail out the changes as they become available.
What are your thoughts on flying Frontier and these upcoming changes? Share on our free miles and points Facebook group or leave it in the comments
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Frontier has a frequent flier program?
Looks like they already cut the option to transfer for hotel stays. When did that happen? Did they explain why they did that without warning?
I have flown with them and probably would again but would never try to accumulate points – as you said – 10000 points for a $39 flight. On SW a $39 flight is like 2,400 points.