Frontier Airlines Mastercard Review: 50,000 Miles, Elite Gold Status, Free Checked Baggage

The Frontier Airlines World Mastercard is a niche co-branded card from Barclays, but if you do fly on Frontier regularly, it actually offers some good perks on a relative basis. Many strict, barebones airlines are starting to trickle back some perks to win back customers and Frontier is no exception. For Frontier, it appears that this credit card is a major gateway to these little wins like actually getting to bring on a carry-on or not having to pay a fee to redeem your miles. (I’ve never flown Frontier before, but I’m assuming they must be cheap for you to put up with this stuff!)

Here are the highlights:

• 50,000 Frontier Miles after $1,000 in purchases within the first 90 days of account opening.
• Two Free Checked Bags for primary cardmember. Must purchase flight at FlyFrontier.com using this card. Includes ski/golf bag.
• Elite Gold Status. Get it upfront for 90 days with account opening and first purchase with your card within the first 90 days of account opening. To keep it, you must spend $3,000 within the first 90 days of account opening. Status will be good for 12 months from the day the account was opened.
• Pooling of miles between friends and family members is allowed with this card.
• Zone 2 Priority Boarding for primary cardmember.
• Award Redemption Fee Waiver
• 5X miles on eligible purchases at flyfrontier.com.
• 3X miles on eligible restaurant purchases.
• 1X miles on all other purchases.
• 1 Elite Status Point for every $1 spent on purchases.
• $100 Frontier Airlines Flight Voucher after your Account anniversary when you have spent $2,500 or more in Net Purchases on your Card Account during your cardmembership year (each 12-month period through and including your Card Account anniversary date).
• $0 annual fee for the first year, then $99.

Elite Gold Status gets you the following benefits:

• Free carry-on bag for yourself
• No change/cancel fees* (+7 days from departure)
• Preferred Seat Assignment at Booking
• Premium Seating at Check-in (based on availability)
• Priority Customer Care (both live phone and online chat)
• Priority Boarding: Zone 1 for you, Zone for 2 everyone in your booking.
• Family Pooling

Redeeming Frontier miles. They advertise that 50,000 miles can be redeem for “up to 2 round-trip award tickets”, which is technically true but that is for their most limited “value” awards. They also have “standard” awards and “last seat” awards (available to elites only). You will also be subject to taxes and fees starting a $5.60 per one-way. Here is their award chart:

The good news is that this card does give you an easy pathway toward Elite Gold status for the first year and that lets you nab any unsold seat on the plane. But that also means that 50,000 miles might only be worth a single roundtrip award ticket.

You also avoid the award redemption fee with this credit card. Otherwise, they charge an award redemption fee of between $15 and $75 for all award tickets departing within 180 days of booking.

I’ve seen outside valuations place the value of a Frontier mile at about 1.1 cent each. After pricing out some Frontier flights, I can roughly agree though it will definitely vary based on your route. The cheaper, shorter flights are easier to find a “saver” award, while their most convenient, longer routes you should expect to use the “standard” or “last seat” awards. I’d also only agree with this valuation if I had this credit card to ease the hassles.

Two free checked bags are a new feature that was just announced 8/15/24, and it hasn’t even been added to the official application page as of this writing (hat tip to DoC). Here is the fine print:

Tickets must be purchased from FlyFrontier.com or the Frontier Airlines mobile app

· There is no limit to how many times you can use this benefit

· Free checked bag benefit includes golf and ski equipment

· Primary cardmembers must use their FRONTIER Airlines World Mastercard at booking to unlock the free checked bag benefit

Due to the limited footprint of Frontier, I’m not sure if I will add this to my Top 10 Best Credit Card Bonus Offers.