Bank of america free spirit credit card

For the frequent Spirit flyer, the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® is worth having. It's the superior option to Spirit's no-annual fee airline card, the Free Spirit® Travel Mastercard®.

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The Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® includes valuable benefits that can easily outweigh its annual fee. Besides offering the ability to earn Free Spirit status through spending and increased earning on Spirit purchases, it comes with a much better sign-up bonus compared with the Free Spirit® Travel Mastercard®.

If you're not a regular Spirit customer, though, the card is unlikely to provide much, if any, value.

The card's benefits can help frequent Spirit flyers avoid all the "gotcha" fees that come with Spirit's "a la carte" pricing model, allowing you to enjoy a better and less costly Spirit Airlines travel experience. It even allows you to avoid the redemption fee for award flights booked within 28 days of departure.

Earn 40,000 bonus points plus a $100 voucher

The Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® currently offers a decent sign-up bonus. You can Earn 60,000 bonus points plus a $100 Companion Flight Voucher after making at least $1,000 in purchases within the first 90 days of account opening.

ValuePenguin values Spirit points at 0.9 cent each, which is about average when compared with other points, but less than many airline programs, including American Airlines, United and Delta.

This means the current welcome offer is worth roughly $360. We also need to include the value of the $100 companion fare, which is essentially a discount off a companion ticket on the same itinerary as the cardholder. This discount maxes out at $100. Thus, the total value of the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® is approximately $460. This is a little less valuable than sign-up bonuses from similar airline credit cards.

How easy are these miles to redeem? Read more below

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What it's worth: Around $460, including the flight voucher

Who's eligible to earn this offer? This offer is available to those opening a new card account and doesn't apply to product changes from another Spirit airlines credit card.

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Earn 3X points on Spirit purchases

Like most airline credit cards, the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® earns bonus points for purchases with Spirit Airlines, plus bonus points in a couple other common spending categories.

Earn 3 points per dollar spent on eligible Spirit purchases; 2 points per dollar spent on eligible dining and grocery store purchases; and 1 point per dollar spent on all other purchases.

The relatively low value of Spirit points make this card a poor choice for most spending. Earning 3 points per $1 on Spirit purchases isn't bad, except that you could be earning 3 points per $1 on all airline purchases with a more flexible card like the Citi Premier® Card. There are also some excellent card choices for dining and grocery stores that provide a far better return.

How much are Spirit Airlines points worth?

With the revamped Spirit Airlines program, the value of Spirit Airlines points has vastly improved. Our sampling of some flights below pegs the value at around 0.9 cents per point. By shopping around for award flights, you can get even better deals than this. Spirit rewards still don't match the value of top airline programs, like Delta and Southwest, but it is possible to travel far with Spirit points.

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Redeeming Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® points

With the updated Spirit Rewards program, it's easy to find good values for your Spirit miles.

Spirit Airlines revamped their Free Spirit loyalty program in January 2021. Along with now using a revenue-based model for awarding points based on fare price, Spirit is using a pseudo-dynamic pricing model for redeeming points.

How many Spirit points do you need for a free flight?: Spirit award tickets start at just 2,500 points, and just 1,000 points for the new Points + Cash option. As you can see from our examples below, Spirit award flight prices vary considerably. You can find them for as low as 2,500 points one-way, and prices climb over 30,000 points for a one-way itinerary at other times.

The value you can get for your points depends entirely on the origin, destination and date of travel. It is good practice to compare the award ticket price to the cost of a paid ticket, minus any taxes and fees. We'll walk through a few examples showing the relative value of your Spirit points.

Flight

Cash price

Points required

Points value

Oakland to Las Vegas $22.40 2,500 + $5.60 $0.007
Sacramento to Nashville $84 8,000 + $5.60 $0.01
San Diego to Medellin, Colombia $74 5,000 + $20.60 $0.011
Los Angeles to Baltimore $266 29,000 $0.009
Average value $0.009

It's easy to search for Spirit award flights. Simply head to spirit.com, plug in your origin, destination, and date(s), toggle for points and click Search Flights.

1. Oakland to Las Vegas

At the cheap end of the spectrum, you can book an award ticket from Oakland to Las Vegas for as low as 2,500 Spirit points and $5.60. This is the lowest price you'll see for Spirit award tickets.

At time of writing, you can buy a cash fare for just $22.40 on this route. This means that you're getting 0.67 cents per Spirit point for this award, which is reasonable value for Spirit points. The Points + Cash option is much worse, only giving you 0.36 cents per point.

2. Sacramento to Nashville

Looking at a randomly selected one-way award with a connection, the potential value you get for your points fluctuates greatly. For the day selected, you can pay either 8,000 Spirit points and $5.60 or buy a cash fare for $84. Here you are getting 0.98 cents per point, even better than the first example. For Saturday and Sunday departures, you would get ~1.3 cents per point, which is even better. You do have to suffer through an overnight connection in Las Vegas for this itinerary.

3. Sacramento to Columbia

Let's check out an international itinerary next. A one-way Spirit award ticket from San Diego to Medellin, Colombia is just 5,000 Spirit points and $20.60. Cash fares at time of writing are $74. You'll be getting just shy of 1.1 cents per Spirit point in this case.

4. Los Angeles to Baltimore

Finally, at the high end of the spectrum, let's look at a flight a few days before Christmas. Besides being a red-eye, a nonstop Spirit flight from Los Angeles to Baltimore costs $266 on Wednesday, Dec. 22. Alternatively, you can use 29,000 Spirit miles. This is a value of 0.9 cent per point.

One bright spot for Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® cardholders is that you can avoid the massive $50 redemption fee for tickets booked less than 28 days from date of departure. Your points also do not expire as long as you hold a Spirit credit card.

Other Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® benefits

Beyond earning Spirit points that you can redeem for free flights, the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® offers a great selection of perks for the frequent Spirit Airlines flyer.

Along with offering a $100 Companion Flight Voucher as part of the sign-up bonus, you can receive a $100 Companion Flight Voucher after each account anniversary if you make at least $5,000 in purchases within the year. You will receive a code via email within the first billing cycle after your account anniversary, or within one billing cycle after you meet the spend requirement of the welcome offer.

The $100 Companion Flight Voucher codes work the same whether you earned it via sign-up bonus or the anniversary benefit:

  • The code may be applied at spirit.com when booking an itinerary where you and a guest are both traveling.
  • You must purchase the tickets with your Spirit Airlines credit card.
  • It must be redeemed within 12 months of the date of issue, although travel itself may occur after expiration.
  • The expiration date cannot be extended.

Primary cardholders of the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® and any companions traveling on the same reservation will all receive a Zone 2 "shortcut boarding" benefit. Zone 1 boarding is reserved for passengers who purchased a carry-on bag. Zone 2 boarding occurs next, followed by family boarding and Zone 3 and Zone 4 boarding.

Whenever you use your Spirit Airlines credit card to purchase food and beverages in flight, you will receive a 25% rebate in the form of a statement credit. The credit will automatically post to your account within seven days from the transaction posting date, and your account must be open to receive the credit.

The Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® offers an introductory annual fee of $0, letting you test out the card's many benefits for a whole year without paying anything.

Both Spirit Airlines credit cardholders and Free Spirit elite members can enjoy the points pooling benefit. Points Pooling is a feature of the Free Spirit program where an elite member or primary cardholder can become a "Pool Pilot" for a group of family or friends. You can link up to eight other Free Spirit members to your points pool. The Pool Pilot must be the one to make award redemptions, although awards can be booked for anyone in the pool.

Spirit Airlines normally charges a $50 award redemption fee for award tickets booked fewer than 28 days from the date of travel. (If you book 28 or more days from the date of departure, you do not have to pay a fee.) This fee is waived for Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® holders and Free Spirit Silver and Gold elite members. Airfare and applicable taxes must be paid using your Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® if this is how you receive this benefit.

One of the unique benefits of the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® is that your spending helps you earn Free Spirit elite status. For every $10 in net purchases on your card, you'll earn 1 Status Qualifying Point (SQP).

  • You'll receive Free Spirit Silver status once you hit 2,000 SQPs ($20,000 in card spend, assuming you don't earn anything by flying).
  • You'll receive Free Spirit Gold once you earn 5,000 SQPs ($50,000 in card spend).

Gold status entitles you to prime perks that can save you a lot of money on Spirit Airline fees, like free checked bags, free seat selection and free in-flight beverages and snacks.

Elite status is valid from when it is initially earned in a given year through the end of the following calendar year.

Both Bank of America Spirit credit cards don't charge foreign transaction fees, making them a good choice when you're outside the U.S. at any of the international destinations served by Spirit Airlines.

Drawbacks to the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®

  • Points are worth less than average. The primary drawback to getting a Spirit credit card is that the points simply aren't worth as much as other airline miles. Where you can get 1.3 cents or more per mile with some other carriers, Spirit Airlines offers less value. Some of this value is recouped if you use your card to earn the $100 voucher and work towards Spirit Airlines elite status, but you can do better with other products if you don't often fly Spirit Airlines and are considering other airline cards.
  • You're locked into flying one airline. Along those same lines, getting a Bank of America Spirit card obviously locks you into earning Spirit Airlines points rather than flexible points. A card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Citi Premier® Card or Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card will provide a better ongoing return on spend as you'll earn bank program rewards that you can transfer to multiple airline partners. However, it's important to note that Spirit Airlines is not a transfer partner of any of these cards.
  • Charges an annual fee. Finally, the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® carries an annual fee after the first year. You'll want to ensure the ongoing value you receive from the card far outweighs paying this each year. Alternatively, you might want to consider the Free Spirit Travel Mastercard instead, which does not charge an annual fee.

How does the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® compare to other cards?

If you're on the fence about whether the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® might be a good choice for you, here's how it compares to a few other similar products.

Free Spiritsup®/sup Travel More World Elite
Mastercardsup®/sup

Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®

Annual Fee

$0 Introductory Fee for the first year. After that, your Annual Fee will be $79.

$0 Intro for the First Year, then $95

$95

$95

More card details

Not available on ValuePenguin

Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® vs. United℠ Explorer Card

Verdict: A more rewarding airline card with a more valuable loyalty program

If you're not committed to Spirit airlines and discount flying, you might consider the United℠ Explorer Card for its valuable airline loyalty program. The United℠ Explorer Card offers a larger sign-up bonus and lets you earn more valuable miles at a faster pace.

Similar to the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® for Spirit flyers, it also offers a set of benefits when travelers fly with United Airlines, including priority boarding and a free checked bag. It also offers a $100 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application. The annual fee is slightly higher than the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® at $0 Intro for the First Year, then $95.

Highlights

  • Annual fee: $0 Intro for the First Year, then $95
  • Welcome bonus: Earn 50,000 bonus miles after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months your account is open.
  • Rewards earned/$1 spent: $0.013
  • Other benefits: Free checked bag, priority boarding, up to $100 credit for Global Entry/TSA Precheck credit, 25% back on in-flight purchases, $0 foreign transaction fees

Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® vs. Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

Verdict: More flexible, valuable rewards redeemable for any airline, including Spirit

If you're looking for a card that earns flexible points that can be redeemed in a variety of ways, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is likely a better choice than a Spirit credit card. It has a slightly higher annual fee of $95, but the ongoing earning rate is better for travel purchases, including Spirit Airlines purchases.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card earns 5x on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards®, 3x on dining and 2x on all other travel purchases. Your points are worth 25% more when redeemed through Chase Travel. You can also transfer points at a 1:1 ratio to a variety of travel partners.

However, you lose out on the Spirit-specific benefits like 25% back on in-flight purchases and the ability to spend toward elite status.

Highlights

  • Annual fee: $95
  • Welcome bonus: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®.
  • Rewards earned/$1 spent: $0.025
  • Other benefits: Travel insurance protections, $0 foreign transaction fees, 1:1 points transfer to airline and hotel partners

Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® vs. Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

Verdict: Earn simple, flexible miles at a high, flat rate

Another comparable product to the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® is the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card. Similar to the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, you earn rewards that are redeemable in a variety of ways rather than being locked into a particular airline currency like you are with a Spirit credit card.

Capital One miles can be used to book travel directly through Capital One, redeemed for cash or for Amazon purchases, or transferred to a set of travel partner programs. This gives you flexibility that the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® doesn't offer.

On the downside, just like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card doesn't offer airline-specific perks.

Highlights

  • Annual fee: $95
  • Welcome bonus: Enjoy a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel
  • Rewards earned/$1 spent: $0.020
  • Other benefits: Global Entry / TSA PreCheck credit, None foreign transaction fees, transfer to travel partners

Should you apply for the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®?

If you're a frequent flyer with Spirit Airlines, the perks offered by the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® may be well worth the reduced return on spend and the annual fee. The card waives the Spirit award redemption fee, gives you 25% back on in-flight purchases, allows you to pool points and helps you earn Free Spirit Elite status that can provide other valuable perks such as free bags and seat selection for Free Spirit Gold members.

For more casual flyers of Spirit Airlines, there are other card options that provide much better value. Check out our recommendations for the best airline credit cards and best credit cards for dining and groceries.

Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® FAQs

Is there an annual fee for the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®?

Yes, the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® has a $0 Introductory Fee for the first year. After that, your Annual Fee will be $79..

How many Spirit miles do I need for a free flight?

Spirit award redemption starts at 2,500 Spirit points. For the new Points + Cash option, awards start at 1,000 points plus additional cash to cover the rest of the fare.

What are the benefits of a Spirit Mastercard?

The benefits of the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® include priority boarding, 25% off in-flight food and beverage purchases, the ability to pool points and the ability to earn Status Qualifying Points through spend. Check out the details above.

How do you get 1,000 free Spirit miles?

You can earn 1,000 free Spirit points when you sign up for Free Spirit Dining and dine within 30 days.

The information related to Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® and Free Spirit® Travel Mastercard® has been independently collected by ValuePenguin and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer of this card prior to publication.

What Bank is free Spirit credit card?

Rewards. Enjoy the flexibility to choose how you redeem your cash rewards – options include: Redeem your cash rewards for any amount, anytime for statement credits, deposits made directly into a Bank of America® checking or savings account, or for credit to an eligible account with Merrill.

Is Spirit credit card free?

Annual fee: $0 intro for the first year, then $79. Sign-up bonus: Earn 60,000 Bonus Points plus a $100 Companion Flight Voucher after making at least $1,000 in purchases within the first 90 days of account opening. Rewards: 3 points per $1 spent on eligible Spirit purchases.

What are the advantages of having a Spirit credit card?

With perks that include priority boarding, an annual anniversary voucher, a rebate on in-flight purchases and a waiver of redemption fees and points expiration, the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard® is a solid pick for frequent flyers of Spirit Airlines.

Can you use free Spirit credit card anywhere?

The Spirit Airlines Credit Card is a MasterCard and most merchants accept MasterCard, so yes, you can use it pretty much anywhere.