Q. I subscribe to your website and receive regular emails on the destinations I want. One thing I do not like is the listings that are for Spirit Airlines. First, there are too many and based on news articles and coverage, Spirit has serious problems relative to their customer service, cancellation of flights etc. I flew Spirit one time and had a big problem with charges on a Spirit vacation relative to the car rental end of it, which was not handled well by Spirit. This was years ago and i can see they continue to have problems. Also, the posted fares are often so few and inaccessible , I now never go into the listings that are Spirit. I think you provide free advertising for them. Isn't there anyway for me to filter out the Spirit fares you post?

A. Despite the fact that so many people hate Spirit, they do have the best fares. For example, were you to travel from Portland OR to Dallas on July 11 and return a week later, Spirit's fare is exactly $98 round-trip. On the same dates, American is charing $838 round-trip--almost ten times as much.

Even with bag fees and other fees, and the admittedly cramped seats, for some people in these challenging times, they have a choice--either see their grandkids or stay home. Thus, we continue to list Spirit's fares. And frankly, no airline is perfect. We get complaints about Southwest, JetBlue and even Virgin America, to name just a few.

By the way, Spirit does not pay us to list their fares. In fact, we lose revenue by listing their fares. Their lowest fares are only available on Spiritair.com, which is a website that we do not "monetiize."  We list their fares simply because for some people it's the only economically viable choice.

Spirit image via Shutterstock