Nearly a year and a half after Sun Country joined the likes of Spirit, Frontier, and other ultra-low-cost carriers by tacking on a sneaky fee for the “convenience” of booking tickets online, I headed to the airport to test it out myself: to book some plane tickets in-person in order to save some money.
Yes, really: In the year 2025, the cheapest way to book flights with many budget airlines is by pretending like it's the 1980s and buying them at the airport. While these “Passenger Usage Charges” or “Technology Development Charges” may be well-known to some seasoned travelers, millions of Americans are completely unaware that they're paying an extra $20 or more each way when booking online – or that they could avoid paying it altogether.
Sun Country calls it a “Passenger Interface Charge,” adding at least $44 roundtrip to each and every ticket it sells online or by phone. With Sun Country flights for our annual company retreat to Palm Spring (PSP) later this year already looking fairly cheap, I figured it was time to give this money-saving trick a whirl to see if I could make them even cheaper.
About 40 minutes and exactly $5.43 in parking fees later, I walked out with tickets for five members of our team … and saved more than $200 in the process. Here's what I learned about the strangest way to book airfare.
Why Do Airlines Do This?
Hundreds of thousands of Americans book airline tickets online every day, and no major U.S. carriers like American, Delta, United, or even Southwest levy a similar charge for doing so.
But in the world of budget airlines – which make their real money charging passengers for extras like seat assignment, bags, and even water onboard – these additional booking fees are fairly common … though still little-known, even among the most frequent flyers.
These fees go by many names. Spirit tacks on a “Passenger Usage Charge” of nearly $23 per segment, while Frontier calls an identical amount a “Carrier Interface Charge.” Allegiant levies a $22 “Carrier Usage Charge” when booking online or by phone, and newcomer Breeze Airways adds $14 for each segment for what it calls a “Technology Development Charge.”
But they're all the same thing: A penalty for booking online or by phone. And given many of these airlines sell flights for $40 each way or less, that fee can eat up a majority of what passengers are actually paying for their flights.
Why don't these carriers just raise their actual fares? Airlines are on the hook to pay a 7.5% federal excise tax on their fares … but not for these separate fees. The same is true for extras like seats, bags, and more. It's part of the reason why add-ons are a core part of budget airlines' business models.
And much to Minnesotans' chagrin, Sun Country has transformed in a budget airline over the course of the last decade – including, unfortunately, charging these hidden fees.
We broke the news that Sun Country began building this “Passenger Interface Charge” into its online fares … way back in April 2022. So unbeknownst to them, virtually every Sun Country passenger is paying an extra $22 each way on their fares – and they have been for years.
But in order to charge these fees in the first place, airlines have to make them optional. That's where heading to the airport comes in … and that's just what I set out to do.
Doing the Math
After going to Charleston and Asheville in recent years, our company settled on Palm Springs for this year's annual retreat. With nonstops operated by both Sun Country and Delta, we had two convenient options for getting there.
Delta, however, went full Delta with some exorbitant pricing: Roundtrip fares were about $600 apiece – for basic economy, no less. At a third of the price, booking Sun Country was a no-brainer.
We could have stopped there … but would we really be living up to our thrifty name if we didn't take things to an extreme to save even more?
Like other budget airlines that levy similar fees, Sun Country doesn't exactly go out of its way to disclose the extra $44 per roundtrip ticket it charges for online bookings. After going through the entire process of booking a flight with Sun Country, you have to click the booking total on the final page before completing your purchase … and then click “all applicable air taxes, fees, and carrier imposed charges” to see a breakdown of the final price.
Sure enough, there it was: Another $44 per passenger for the “Passenger Interface Fee.” Subtract that, and it brings the total down to about $134 apiece – before adding a bag or any other extras, of course.
For the group of five I'd be booking tickets for, that's $220 in potential savings.
I've done far stranger things to save $200-plus on flights than making a trip to the airport.
Here's where I'll note that I live a grand total of … six minutes away from the Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) airport – maybe 10, if traffic is bad – so heading there to buy tickets isn't a real burden. But even if I lived farther away, I'd simply make a pitstop to buy some tickets before departing or after landing from another trip rather than making a separate trip.
With that in mind, it was time to head to Sun Country's home base at Terminal 2. Let's do this!
Time it Right & Pick Your Place
Please do yourself, your fellow travelers, and airline agents a favor: Don't try to buy plane tickets during the morning rush.
At many airports, the morning check-in window is the busiest part of the day as travelers and airlines alike start their days. At Minneapolis, it can be a real zoo for Sun Country between roughly 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. as agents scramble to check bags and print boarding passes for dozens of departing flights.
Accordingly, Sun Country spokeswoman Wendy Burt said that official ticketing hours at the airline's Minneapolis hub are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. At other airports where Sun Country flies to and from, it could be hit or miss – airlines rarely staff check-in desks around the clock outside of their hubs, so you'd need to time it right.
Other airlines can be far more difficult to pin down when it comes to selling you a ticket in person.
Spirit's preferred ticketing hours are fairly generous at many airports, while Allegiant's airport ticketing hours leave just an hour or two once a week at some locations. And then there's newcomer Breeze, which will only sell tickets in person on Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET.
I made my way to the airport on a Friday afternoon and found a slow but steady trickle of passengers getting ready to fly off somewhere with Sun Country.
I made a beeline for the empty “Special Services” queue on the far left-hand side of Sun Country's desks, waited a minute or two until an agent waved me over, and said something I've never uttered inside of an airport before: “I'd like to buy some plane tickets, please.”
Not every employee is trained to sell tickets at the counter, as the agent who initially waved me over had to flag down a co-worker to assist. That took another two or three minutes.
Buying a Ticket
“Does this happen often?” I asked innocently as the new agent fired up her computer to get started.
“Every day,” the otherwise cheery desk agent said with a sort of resigned chuckle, before adding the airline typically only sells tickets at the desk a few times a day at most.
It seems that despite our best efforts, few travelers have realized they can save close to $50 by buying flights at the airport … or maybe they've just decided it's not worth the trouble. To quote the wise words of Tobias Fünke: “There are dozens of us. Dozens!”
At first, I was worried agents wouldn't want to help with such an arcane request and just turn me away. Thankfully, that wasn't the case! But even so, I worried it would be a time-consuming process to relay the flight details and all our passenger information, so I did something I'd highly recommend – especially if you're booking for more than just one traveler.
I printed out a list of each passengers' name, date of birth, Known Traveler Number (KTN) for TSA PreCheck benefits, and Sun Country Rewards account number. The agent helping me out specifically mentioned how helpful that was to expedite the whole process.
One slight hiccup: Apparently my co-worker Gunnar Olson has a common name – a shocker in Minnesota, I know! – because there were a few of them that I could have booked on our flight. Fortunately for both of us, the Thrifty Traveler Podcast host and I are on good enough terms that I have his phone number saved, so I was able to quickly confirm exactly which Gunnar Olson would be joining us on the trip. Surely his date of birth could have done the trick, too.
Less than five minutes later, we were wrapping things up when the agent asked me a question that surprised me: “Do you want to add any bags to your flights?”
Yes, You Can Add Bags While Buying!
Many budget airlines like Sun Country will cut you the best deal on baggage if you add it to your reservation right when you're purchasing your tickets. Go back even an hour later and add a bag – or, God forbid, do it at the counter on the day of departure – and that bag could cost as much as $65 in each direction.
And that's the rub with this “go to the airport and buy your flights in person” trick. Some airlines won't allow you to add a carry-on bag or checked luggage on the spot, forcing you to pay higher prices elsewhere. But I had no problem adding a carry-on bag to each person's ticket with Sun Country.
That's huge. By adding those bags while purchasing tickets at the airport, it was another $34 per person, each way – the same price the airline charges when booking airfare online. Had I waited until I got home, the airline would have charged $50 a pop.
That would have eaten into much of what I saved by going to the airport in the first place.
I could also pay for a seat assignment for all five of us on the spot as well. But considering those prices would be identical no matter when I paid, I figured it wasn't worth the extra time at the airport.
The Final Numbers
Almost 40 minutes to the dot from when I left my house – yes, I started a timer – I walked away from the Sun Country desk with a confirmation slip in hand.
Here's what it would have cost had I booked five roundtrip tickets from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Palm Springs at SunCountry.com, adding a carry-on bag each way for all five of us: $1,229.90 total, or just under $246 apiece thanks to that $44-a-person “Passenger Interface Charge.”
And here's my final receipt after booking at the airport for … drumroll please … $1,009.90 – exactly $220 less, down to the penny. Because we didn't pay that $44 fee each, the tickets (with carry-on bags!) to Palm Springs cost us roughly $202 per person.
For reasons I can't quite explain, the ticket clearly suggests we saved just $36.10 total. But that corresponds to the U.S. Transportation Tax (of $7.22 apiece), which we definitely still paid on these tickets.
So who knows why that shows up on these tickets when you purchase in person? Rest assured, our savings were actually far greater.
By the time I made it back to my desk at home, I had no problem plugging the six-digit confirmation code for the trip – which I blurred from the screenshot above – into Sun Country's site to manage our reservation. Both Gunnar and our co-worker, Jon, said the trip automatically showed up in their Sun Country apps, too.
Bottom Line
It will never cease to make me laugh that this actually works – that you can save money flying budget airlines like Sun Country or Spirit by buying your tickets in person at the airport.
Time for the $1 million – or perhaps $220 – question: Would I go to the airport again to buy plane tickets? Gladly. I might think twice if I were just flying solo. But booking a group trip or tickets for family where the savings multiply, it's a no-brainer.
