Frontier Airlines Card Review: So-so, Unless You Earn the Voucher

The Frontier Airlines World Mastercard® is objectively a below-average airline credit card. Even so, it still could be worth getting if you’re an avid Frontier Airlines flyer.

The reason: Its yearly $100 flight voucher, if you earn it, covers the annual fee. So any other benefit you squeeze from the card is gravy.

Problem is, you’ll have to squeeze hard. You’ll get no free checked bags as you do with most airline cards that charge an annual fee. And the $100 itself is laden with fine print, like you can’t use it for bag fees or any of the discount airline’s other gotcha fees, such as seat assignment fees.

» MORE: Frontier Airlines: The complete guide

Key features of the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard®

Card type: Airline.

Annual fee: $89

Sign-up bonus: Earn 40,000 bonus mile after spending $500 on purchases and paying the annual fee in full, both within the first 90 days. Earn an additional 20,000 bonus miles after spending $2,000 on purchases within the first 6 months with the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard

Rewards:

• 5 miles per dollar spent on purchases from Frontier.

• 3 miles per dollar at restaurants.

• 1 mile per dollar on all other purchases.

Frontier miles have a shorter shelf life than other airline miles. Miles expire after just six months if your frequent flyer account doesn't show activity. But if you make a purchase on your Frontier Airlines World Mastercard® at least once every six months, that counts as activity on your account and resets the clock on the expiration date.

APR: 0% intro APR on Balance Transfers for the first fifteen billing cycles, and then the ongoing APR of 20.74%, 24.74% or 29.74%, Variable APR.

Balance transfer fee: Either $5 or 3% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater.

Foreign transaction fee: None.

Other benefits:

Flight voucher (with caveats)

If you make $2,500 in purchases per year — averaging $208 per month — with your Frontier Airlines World Mastercard®, you'll earn a $100 Frontier Airlines flight voucher after your account anniversary, which more than makes up for the card’s annual fee.

That’s the end of the good news, though. Read the fine print and you’ll see that the voucher is good only toward Frontier airfare booked on the website. You can't use it to cover fees for checked bags, seat assignments, reservation changes or membership in the airline's Discount Den program. And if your ticket price is less than $100, you forfeit the remaining value. One more gotcha: The voucher expires in six months. To use it, you must book the flight before it expires, although the flight can take place after expiration.

Good Introductory offers

The card comes with a nice sign-up bonus: Earn 40,000 bonus mile after spending $500 on purchases and paying the annual fee in full, both within the first 90 days. Earn an additional 20,000 bonus miles after spending $2,000 on purchases within the first 6 months with the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard Depending on where and when you travel, that could be worth a round-trip flight.

Unlike most airline cards, it also comes with 0% intro APR on Balance Transfers for the first fifteen billing cycles, and then the ongoing APR of 20.74%, 24.74% or 29.74%, Variable APR. Keep in mind that balance transfers don't earn miles.

Priority boarding

Airline credit cards with an annual fee typically come with some type of early boarding, so you can get settled and find space for your carry-on if you have one. With this Frontier Airlines card, you get Zone 2 boarding, meaning you generally get to board before passengers in Zone 3 and 4.

Progress toward elite status

With your card, you’ll earn 1 qualifying mile toward elite status with every $1 spent on purchases. The lowest elite tier is "Elite 20k," earned by accumulating 20,000 qualifying miles or 25 flight segments in the same calendar year. It includes such benefits as free seat assignments and a free carry-on bag. Normally, Frontier charges for these. (Even with Elite 20k status, you'll still have to pay for a checked bag, though.)

Locked into Frontier

This card makes sense only if you’re loyal to Frontier Airlines and regularly fly from an airport it serves. The usefulness of its rewards currency, Frontier Miles, is limited because the airline is relatively small, so it might not fly where you want to go. And it has no partner airlines that you can transfer miles to.

If you want more flexibility, a general travel credit card may be more appropriate for your lifestyle. The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card earns bonus rewards in a variety of popular spending categories, including dining and travel. Plus, there's a rich welcome offer: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®. Points can be redeemed for a variety of things, but they’re more valuable — worth 1.25 cents apiece — when redeemed for travel through the Chase Ultimate Rewards® portal. You can book airline tickets, hotels, rental cars there. It's also possible to transfer your points to several airline and hotel partners. The annual fee is $95.

Low-value rewards

Frontier's miles are worth less than those of any other major U.S. airline, according to NerdWallet valuations.

So that means when you earn 5 miles per dollar spent with Frontier or 3 miles per dollar at restaurants, the rewards rate is slightly less than 5% or 3%.

You could earn high rewards in more categories with the Citi Premier® Card. It earns 3 ThankYou points per dollar spent on air travel, hotels, dining, supermarkets and gas stations. All non-bonus-category spending earns 1 point per dollar spent. Points are worth 1 cent apiece when redeemed for travel. And the card comes with a nice bonus offer.