a group of people standing in a line

While I had a seamless and positive experience on Frontier Airlines, my wife and children just endured the opposite: customer service so bad that I was almost in shock. Did you miss your flight due to bad weather? Oh, you can buy a new ticket according to Frontier…

Horrible Customer Service On Frontier Airlines

The concept of “you get what you pay for” is not lost on me, but neither is a reasonable expectation of a minimum level of service that includes safe transport to your destination. No, I don’t expect a comfortable seat or great service on Frontier, but I do expect to fly from Chicago to Los Angeles if I book a ticket from Chicago to Los Angeles.

My wife Heidi and the kids were flying from Chicago (ORD) to Burbank (BUR) via Denver (DEN) this week (the day before the fires…). The tickets were 60 USD each…1/4 of the cost of flying nonstop to LA and Burbank is closer to our house than Los Angeles International.

It was snowing in Chicago and that delayed the departure of their first flight, a creeping delay that grew in 15-minute increments eventually to 2.5 hours.

By the time they took off from Chicago, it was 8:30 am. They were due into Denver at 9:47 am with a connection to Burbank departing at 10:00 am. I knew it would be tight, but thought there might be a chance if the flight made up some time in the air.

Nope. The flight touched down at 9:45 am in Denver, but by the time it reached the gate, the Burbank flight had pushed four minutes early.

It happens…so far, so good. The weather delay was certainly not the fault of Frontier.

But what came next…

The Frontier app offered no rebooking options (it essentially showed them as being onboard the Burbank flight) and the customer service line was three hours long.

I directed them to the nearby Capital One Lounge and told them I would take care of the rebooking.

Little did I know what I was getting myself into.

After the app failed, I reached out to Frontier via X. Take a look:

(TLDR: only the airport can rebook you)

I’ll address the phone issue in another post.

How is it possible, in 2025, that an airline cannot rebook you?

That online support and the reservation number are totally impotent to help?

Next, I reached out to Orbitz. I buy Frontier tickets through Orbitz because tickets booked on that online travel agency often have a courtesy cancellation period to void the ticket beyond 24 hours.

Wait till you see this:

So according to Frontier, if I miss a connecting flight due to a weather delay, I have to buy a new ticket. 

Asking my wife to stand in line with a four-year-old and eight-year-old to rebook is truly absurd. One customer support desk (This customer support desk). One agent. Hundreds of stranded travelers.

I told Heidi that I could buy three walk-up tickets on United for $484 each or she could wait in line.

My analytical wife crunched the numbers and said she would wait in line.

She did and by this time (after a couple of hours in the lounge), the line was only about an hour long.

I told her to ask to be booked on the flight to Orange County, which departed in about an hour later and had seats available.

After finally reaching the front of the line, the agent said, “That flight is full. There are no seats available.”

Heidi laughed out loud (oh, how I love her).

And then she said, “It’s not full. I can buy a ticket on it right now.”

Without another word, the agent rebooked them on that flight and handed them boarding passes…

There you have it…customer service on Frontier.

a group of people sitting in chairs
Poor kids…

Smooth sailing from here, right?

a screen on a counter
Delay…

CONCLUSION

The weather delay was not Frontier’s fault but talk about a disgusting and needlessly complicated ordeal to get rebooked that included misdirection, lying, and incompetency.

Caveat emptor: when things go sideways on Frontier, they really go sideways…

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