Budget Airline Travel Tips: How to Save Money with Allegiant & Frontier
Guest Post By Jilene Brady @thetravelingdeals
Before I ever got into points and miles, I traveled on deals using buget airlines. I remember one of my best childhood friends inviting my husband and I to her wedding in San Francisco. We had just graduated college and bought our first home, so our travel budget was tiny. I found flights on Allegiant from Mesa Gateway Airport to Stockton, California, for a really low price. And I learned a trick to save even more, which dropped the total to $29 round trip! We continued flying budget airlines with our three kids to visit family who lived near a small regional airport that didn’t offer any direct flights with the main carriers. The advantage to flying value carriers, is it allows families to travel for much less and save your points/miles for those bigger trips you want to take. I’ll share below my tips and tricks for both Allegiant and Frontier Airlines, our most used budget airlines as a family.
Allegiant Air
In Person Discount
The first and biggest way to save on Allegiant flights is to buy tickets in person at the airport. You don’t even have to buy them from the airport you plan to fly out of. Any airport that Allegiant flies from will have specific hours they offer in person ticket sales. This saves you about $22 per person each way, so for my family of 5 flying round trip, we save $220 on our flights! You can find the hours for in person sales at each of the airports -> HERE.
I recommend arriving twenty minutes prior to the time listed to ensure you are closer to the front of the line.
Online Discount
If you don’t live near an airport to take advantage of the in-person deal, there are always online codes available for $20 off a roundtrip flight or $10 off one way. You can find these with a simple search online or listed in Reddit or Facebook groups. I share them on my Instagram account as well. You can book anyone age fifteen or older on a separate booking, using the discount code each time. I have done this when I didn’t have time to go to the airport. I book my husband and my two oldest kids each on separate reservations to save the $20. Then my youngest and I on one. This saves us $80 and we can book from home.
Save on Baggage/Seat Fees
Allegiant does charge extra for carryon bags, checked bags, and seat selection. We have backpacks from Amazon that we always use as our personal item and they are perfect for our trips that are 4-5 days. I have noticed that it is usually cheaper to pay for a checked bag versus a carryon with Allegiant. You could save by checking a larger suitcase if you can’t fit everything in a personal bag. For seating, when my kids were all younger than twelve, we never paid for seat selection and they always seated us together.
Frontier Airlines
I have found both cheap cash rates and point rates when flying Frontier. Last March, my boys and I flew from Phoenix to Orlando for 25 Frontier miles each way nonstop. Yes, just 25 miles! And I found Cancun flights for 100 miles each way. Those flash sales don’t happen often, but even standard rates are low at 2,500 miles for domestic and 5,000 for international.
Save With Promotions
I don’t have the Frontier credit card, but have earned miles by flying on cash bookings and signing up for promotions they offer. For example, they ran a promotion where you could get 5,000 miles just by submitting a screen shot of another airline program you had at least 5,000 miles with. I did this for both my husband and I, and received our bonus miles about a week later.
Another promotion Frontier runs usually once a year is a status match. You can apply for status if you hold status with another airline. Or like the promo I took advantage of last year, which allowed anyone who was just a loyalty member of Southwest, Alaska, JetBlue, or Spirit to apply. It was $69 and I received Gold status through the end of 2026, which gets me a free carry-on bag, free preferred seat selection, Zone 1 boarding, and complimentary upgrades to premium seating at check-in. These benefits easily cover the cost to match to Gold status.
Discount Den
Periodically throughout the year, Frontier offers a special on their Discount Den membership, which gives you a lower price on flights. It also allows one child, under age 15, to fly free with an adult ticket on eligible flights. Watch for Frontier to offer the $40 enrollment fee to be waived when you sign up. Then the cost drops from $99.99 for the year to $59.99. As long as you plan to fly enough times a year to offset the fee, this is a great deal. We often find flights for $19 each way for Discount Den members. My daughter and I flew from Seattle to Phoenix on this deal, and we have booked the same rate to San Diego, Denver, Las Vegas, Houston, San Francisco, Santa Ana, LAX, and more.
Save on Baggage/Seat Fees
We use our same Amazon backpacks for our personal item when we fly Frontier. They do seem to be more likely to measure personal items and carry-on bags than Allegiant, so I wouldn’t risk bringing a bag that may exceed those specifications. Watch for Frontier to run specials on their upgrade bundles. I have seen offers to upgrade for $1 and get a free carry-on, seat selection at booking, and free cancelation/changes. Just as with Allegiant, we have never had issues not being seated with our kids when they were under the ages of 12.
Bottom Line
If you want to save money on travel with your family, flying budget airlines provides many great routes at low, family-friendly prices. Allegiant was just named the #2 U.S. airline by the Wall Street Journal and the top Value Carrier! So give them a chance and go book that family vacation.
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