Frontier & Spirit Airlines merging...

[natshar]

I'm definitely frugal (ie cheap), you can ask my family.  BUT, you get nickel and dimed to death on Spirit/Frontier.  That initial cost of your flight is just the beginning - that's the price for walking onto the plane.  You want a seat (you HAVE to have one), that's an additional fee.  You want a row or aisle seat, extra fee. You want to sit next to your family, fee.  You want to bring a suitcase, fee.  By the time you've added just a couple of things, you're paying the same price as the other airlines.  It's ridiculous.

I prefer to just know the price up front.

You don't have to pay for seats, they just make it seem like you do. When I flew Spirit I always clicked the (rather small and not obvious) button that says "continue without selecting seats" or something similar like that. Then randomly selects a seat for you with no choice and every time it was always a middle seat for me. Which is fine since it was just me, I guess if you are a family with kids this wouldn't be ideal and makes sense to pay. Also I always used a backpack as my free under seat item since it would usually be technically larger than the measurement but they wouldn't measure it cause it was on my back and it is squishy so still fits under the seat anyway.