Budget Airlines and my serious relationship with them

You asked and I am going answer. If you have been following me for awhile now you know I love my budget airlines. Like capitol L O V E love. I get lots of messages both questioning my sanity and also asking me to share my tips, tricks and experiences. SO here we are.

Thrifty living doesn’t end for me at my closet. Being “thrifty” means lots of different things in my world. It means extending my bank account to the furthest it can reach without completely draining it. So when it comes to travel I am no different. If I had a dollar for every message I got asking how I travel so much I could travel twice as much! The easiest answer I can give you is budget airlines! They get me from point A to very exciting point B for a fraction of the price. I figure my pretty fat butt is going to have to squeeze into a too small seat no matter what airline I am on so I might as well save some dollars while I do it.

My favorite perk of budget airline is the freedom to pay for what seat you want. I know paying for a seat doesn’t sound like freedom but let me explain. Spirit Airlines for instance has their oversized seats at the front of the plane in place of doing a first class. Any person on that flight has to option to pay a few extra dollars to snag one of those seats. This is a huge stress relief for someone who is plus size! Half of my anxiety about flying comes from being smushed into a seat and making the person sitting next to me either angry or uncomfortable. I know this is dumb and we should all be kind and understanding to each other but it is a very real stresser for a lot of fat people. Pro tip: The closer you get to the day of the flight the cheaper these seats become! So keep checking back and see how long you can wait to save some extra dollars. A lot of people don’t select their seats until check in so a lot of times you can wait until the day before the flight and only pay $20! This is a much cheaper option then some plus size people who have to pay for a whole other seat all together.

Another big plus of this for plus size people is having the option to choose either an exit row seat to allow for extra room or an aisle seat. Again all of these things can cause real anxiety before a tip so having these options really can open up traveling for people who otherwise may shy away from flying. Plus in an exit row you get views like this!

Bags! This is another Spirit (and Sun Country) tip who is honestly who I fly the most. You are allowed one personal bag and then you have to pay for a carry on. If you are traveling for a longer length of time this may not work but if it’s a quick trip here’s another way to save some dollars. Your personal item doesn’t have to be a purse or a backpack it can be a weekender bag! I always pack my duffel (from the picture above) and that counts as a personal bag. The only thing you have to do to keep it from being a carry-on is shove your purse inside of it! As long it is the only bag you are bringing on the flight you don’t have to pay for it. This saves you at least $80 every round trip! Once you’re on the flight you can still totally put it in the overhead bin and not have to worry about shoving it under the seat in front of you.

So. Many. Routes. I am kind of a snob with flights when it comes to layovers. I pretty much don’t book flights with layovers and these budget airlines because they are in demand have lots and lots of direct flights. It is so nice to know I only have the anxiety of boarding and picking seats and getting comfortable for one flight instead of multiple. Again if this is not something you have to think about that is awesome but something as small as this does keep people from flying and experiencing travel in a bigger way.

That is it for now! I hope you learned something and this opened your mind to adventuring more then you maybe would have without these things as an option. These airlines may not give you a free bag of pretzels or have a lounge to hangout in before the flight but they will save you enough money to buy your own damn pretzels. So book that trip you have been wanting to take and experience a little more of this world that maybe you wouldn’t have before. The more we experience each other and our different ways of living the more we will all get along. See you in the air!