Our Verdict
Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®* offers valuable perks to both occasional and frequent Spirit travelers. For these travelers, the annual fee can be justified to avoid Spirit’s award redemption fees, unlock points pooling and get perks like early boarding. With that said, this card should likely be your secondary—not primary—travel rewards card.
Pros
- Ability to spend towards elite status
- Anniversary spend bonus
- Zone 2 boarding
- Access to points pooling
Cons
- Annual fee after first year
- No luggage benefit
Highlights
- Earn 50,000 bonus points, plus a $100 Companion Flight Voucher after spending $1,000 in purchases within the first 90 days of account opening
- 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
- Receive a $100 companion flight voucher each anniversary after qualifying purchases
- $0 intro annual fee for the first yea; $79 thereafter
Introduction
The Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®* gives occasional Spirit travelers a way to improve their Spirit travel experience—from avoiding points expiration to getting access to points pooling.
Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®* also seems designed to be a must-have for frequent Spirit travelers. Free Spirit cardholders can spend their way toward elite status, get early boarding and avoid award redemption fees. The card offers a decent 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 plus a $100 Companion Pass Flight Voucher after spending $5,000 in purchases in a year to reward Spirit loyalists.
That said, this is more of a niche card and won’t be the right choice for all travelers.
Featured Partner Offers
Quick Facts
- 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
- No award redemption fees for the primary cardholder
- No point expiration as long as you’re a cardholder
- Earn a $100 Companion Flight Voucher after spending $5,000 within the previous cardholder year
- Earn 1 Status Qualifying Point per $10 spent
- Create a Points Pool with up to eight other Free Spirit members
- Get Zone 2 “Shortcut Boarding” on all Spirit flights
- Get a 25% rebate on all in-flight purchases on Spirit flights
Free Spirit Travel More World Elite Mastercard
Earning Rewards
Not surprisingly, Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®* earns Free Spirit points. But, don’t assume that these are the same not-so-useful points as in the past. Spirit improved many aspects of its Free Spirit program as part of the program relaunch. That includes the value of Free Spirit points.
The Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®* is offering a welcome bonus: 50,000 bonus points plus a $100 Companion Flight Voucher after spending $1,000 in purchases within the first 90 days of account opening.
The card earns 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.
Cardholders can spend their way to elite status. The card earns 1 Status Qualifying Point for every $10 spent on purchases. Even without stepping foot on a Spirit flight, you can earn Silver elite status with $20,000 in spending or Gold elite status with $50,000 of spending on the card. By spending $1,500 on qualifying Spirit airfare and add-on fees, you’ll only need to spend $5,000 on the card to earn Silver elite status.
As an added incentive, cardholders can also earn a $100 Companion Flight Voucher for spending $5,000 in purchases within the previous cardholder year. As with the Companion Flight Voucher earned through the welcome bonus, this provides up to a $100 discount on companion airfare (excluding taxes and fees) when booking friends and family to go on a Spirit flight with you.
As a cardholder, you don’t have to worry about Spirit’s point expiration policy, which is normally after 12 months of inactivity. Points don’t expire as long as your credit card account is open.
Redeeming Rewards
Under the Free Spirit program, redemptions start at just 2,500 points each way. Award pricing is loosely based on the base airfare for a Spirit flight. Award prices are set in increments of 500 points.
The redemption rate depends on the date, route and even flight chosen. As a result, there is no fixed redemption rate. For example, here’s a flight from Atlanta (ATL) to Los Angeles (LAX) on May 12. A standard ticket costs $62.39 each way.
On this date, awards cost 4,000 points each way. After you factor in the $5.60 taxes and fees on the award ticket, you’re getting around 1.4 cents per point on a standard fare.
Just a few days later, the standard ticket pricing is also $62.39 each way.
However, the award pricing is now 5,000 points each way. For these award flights, the redemption rate drops to 1.1 cents per point.
Since awards start at 2,500 points, low-cost flights provide an especially poor value. For example, you can pay just $21.40 to fly from Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) to Las Vegas (LAS).
These flights cost the minimum of 2,500 points. But, after factoring in the $5.60 in taxes that you have to pay on the award, you’re paying 2,500 points to save $15.80. That’s only 0.6 cents per point in value.
As a baseline valuation, we are going to use 1.1 cents per point in value. Just keep in mind that you may be able to get more (or much less) than this rate.
Rewards Potential
Earning a solid welcome bonus is great. However, it’s important to know just how rewarding a card will be over the long term. To demonstrate the earnings potential of the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®*, let’s run some numbers.
Forbes Advisor utilizes data from various government studies for both earning and spending to create an apples-to-apples comparison between cards. The 70th percentile of wage-earning households brings in $116,000 annually and has $36,177 in expenses that could be reasonably charged on a credit card.
The following rewards potential breakdown assumes that all airfare purchases are on Spirit, receiving 3 points per dollar in spend.
|
Category
|
Earning Rate
|
Estimated Annual Spend
|
Estimated Annual Earnings
|
|
Airfare
|
3X
|
$2,443
|
7,329
|
|
Dining
|
2X
|
$3,856
|
7,712
|
|
Groceries
|
2X
|
$6,692
|
13,384
|
|
All Other Purchases
|
1X
|
$23,186
|
23,186
|
|
Total: 51,611 Free Spirit points
|
|||
A cardholder can expect to earn a total of 51,611 Free Spirit points each year, in addition to the welcome bonus earned in the first year. At an average redemption rate of 1.1 cents per point, that’s approximately $567.72 in value toward flights each year.
Other Free Spirit Travel More World Elite Mastercard Benefits
- Waived Spirit Redemption Fees: As a cardholder, you’ll avoid Spirit’s $50 redemption fee for awards booked within 28 days of departure.
- No Point Expiration: Your Free Spirit points won’t expire as long as you’re a cardholder.
- $100 Companion Flight Voucher: Spend $5,000 or more within the previous cardholder year to earn a $100 Companion Flight Voucher.
- Early Boarding: Get Zone 2 “Shortcut Boarding” on all Spirit flights.
- Contactless Card: Tap to pay in stores using the contactless card.
- Free FICO Score: Opt-in to get a free FICO Score updated monthly.
- No foreign transaction fees: You won’t pay foreign transaction fees when you use your card abroad.
- World Elite Mastercard benefits: As a World Elite Mastercard cardholder, get benefits including ID Theft Protection, Lyft credits and access to the World Elite Mastercard Concierge.
- Access to points pooling: Points pooling accounts can only be started by Pool Pilots, which are members with Silver/Gold Status or a Free Spirit Credit Cardholder. They can invite up to eight friends and family members to contribute points and are responsible for redeeming the points.
Fine Print
Interest Rates
- Regular APR: 20.24% - 28.24% variable
- Purchase Intro APR: N/A
- Balance Transfer Intro APR: N/A
Fees
- Annual Fee: $0 intro annual fee for the first year; $79 thereafter
- Balance Transfer Fee: 3% of the amount of each transaction
- Foreign Purchase Transaction Fee: None
How the Free Spirit Travel More World Elite Mastercard Stacks Up
Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®* vs. Frontier Airlines World Mastercard®*
Fellow ultra-low-cost airline Frontier offers travelers an $89 annual fee card, and the two cards share quite a few similarities. Both offer a welcome bonus, priority Zone 2 boarding, award redemption fee waiver, no foreign transaction fees, the ability to spend toward a $100 voucher (Frontier requires $2,500 of spending each card membership year), points pooling and spending toward elite status.
The Frontier Airlines World Mastercard®* offers a bonus of 5 miles per dollar spent on eligible purchases at flyfrontier.com, 3 miles per dollar on eligible restaurant purchases and 1 mile per dollar on all other purchases.
Frontier Miles and Free Spirit Points have similar valuations, meaning that the Frontier card is generally more rewarding. The grocery store category is the only one where the Spirit card beats the Frontier card. However, the right card for you is going to depend more on which airline best serves your home airport and favorite destinations.
Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®* vs. Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
The Free Spirit Travel More card offers some great Spirit-specific benefits. However, it lacks travel protections and general travel benefits. For this reason, the Free Spirit Travel More card is a good secondary travel card for Spirit flyers. But, you should have a good primary travel rewards card, and the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is an excellent choice for this role.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card will earn 5 points per dollar on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠, 3 points per dollar on dining, select streaming services, and online grocery purchases (excluding Walmart, Target and wholesale clubs), 2 points per dollar on all other travel purchases and 1 point per dollar on other purchases. These Chase Ultimate Rewards® points can be transferred to eligible airline and hotel partners or redeemed for travel through the Chase Travel Portal at a rate of 1.25 cents each. That makes Ultimate Rewards points slightly more valuable than Spirit points on travel and potentially vastly more valuable on transfer partners.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card also offers travel benefits like trip cancellation/interruption insurance, rental car collision insurance, baggage delay insurance, trip delay insurance, purchase protection and extended warranty coverage.
Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®* vs. Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
Another general travel card worth considering is the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (rates & fees). The beauty of the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card lies in the simplicity of earning miles. You’ll earn 5 miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, 5 miles per dollar spent on Capital One Entertainment purchases through 12/31/25 and an unlimited 2 miles per dollar spent on other purchases. Like with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, these are “hybrid points” that can either be used for travel purchases or transferred to eligible airline or hotel partners.
The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card doesn’t offer as many travel and shopping protections as the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, but it still beats the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®*.
Is the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®* for You?
If you’re a frequent Spirit traveler, the Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®* is worth considering. While other cards may be more rewarding, the Travel More card scores you Spirit-specific perks like early boarding, a redemption fee waiver, 25% rebate on inflight purchases, points pooling and the ability to spend toward elite status. Those are perks that can easily justify the annual fee for the right traveler.
Find the Best Travel Credit Cards for 2024
Find the best travel credit card for your travel needs.
Methodology
Forbes Advisor considers a variety of criteria when assigning credit cards a rating. Cards are graded based on numerous factors including:
- Annual fees
- Welcome bonus offers
- Ongoing earning rates
- Value of individual points or miles
- Included travel or merchant credits
- Additional cardholder benefits
Card features we expect cardholders to use the most often are weighted more heavily in our ratings. Altogether, the factors came together to provide a star rating for each individual card.
Read More: How Forbes Advisor Rates Credit Cards
For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.
*The information for the following card(s) has been collected independently by Forbes Advisor: Free Spirit® Travel More World Elite Mastercard®, Frontier Airlines World Mastercard®. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
