Frontier held a media event at Orlando International Airport on Thursday morning and announced something the airline had never done before: nonstop service to South America. Three routes, all to Colombia, all launching in December. The fares attached to the announcement start at $99 one-way — and Frontier’s own press release puts a hard stop on when you can grab one. Book by September 16, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern, or the introductory pricing is gone.

That’s not a soft deadline dressed up as urgency. That’s five days from today.

We’ve covered enough of these compressed booking windows this year — Thanksgiving fares, Memorial Day chaos, spring break scrambles — to know the pattern: airlines announce, outlets report, and by the time most travelers hear about it secondhand, half the window is already spent. This one’s tighter than most. Here’s what actually launched, what the fares really cost once you add the parts Frontier doesn’t put in the headline, and what to do before Wednesday night.

Quick Verdict

Route	Launch Date	Frequency	Intro Fare (one-way)
Orlando → Bogotá	Dec 14, 2026	6x weekly, daily from Mar 6, 2027	$99
Orlando → Cartagena	Dec 19, 2026	Weekly	$129
Orlando → Medellín	Dec 10, 2026	Daily	$169

Book by: September 16, 2026, 11:59 p.m. ET Travel window: January 14 – April 5, 2027 (blackout Mar 23–30) Catch: Fares are one-way, select-day, and don’t include a bag — see below before you assume $99 is your total

What Frontier Actually Announced

Frontier flies to over 100 destinations and none of them, until this week, were in South America. That changes in December. The carrier is launching nonstop Orlando service to three Colombian cities — Medellín starting first on December 10 with daily flights, Bogotá on December 14 running six times a week before stepping up to daily by March 6, 2027, and Cartagena on December 19 as a weekly route.

The timing isn’t random. All three cities were previously served from the US by Spirit Airlines, which spent this year cutting international routes before shutting down entirely. Frontier’s leadership has been open about the strategy — CEO James Dempsey told reporters the airline plans to keep “picking off markets” that Spirit abandoned, and Colombia was apparently near the top of that list. If you were one of the travelers whose Spirit flight to Cartagena got canceled back in April, there’s a certain irony in Frontier filling that exact gap eight months later.

WFTV, The Points Guy, Simple Flying, and half a dozen other outlets picked up the announcement within a day of the Orlando event, which tells you this wasn’t a quiet filing — Frontier wanted the noise, because noise sells $99 fares fast.

How Much Do the Fares Actually Cost?

Here’s where the three numbers matter more than the headline single figure. Frontier’s introductory one-way fares aren’t a flat $99 across the board — that’s the Bogotá price. Cartagena starts at $129. Medellín, the route getting daily service out of the gate, starts at $169. All three require booking before the September 16 cutoff and flying on a select day between January 14 and April 5, 2027, with a blackout stretch over spring break (March 23–30).

Now the part that isn’t in the press release headline: these are Frontier fares, and Frontier’s entire business model runs on the base price being the smallest number you’ll pay. Frontier’s baggage fees are among the highest in the industry — a personal item might be included, but a carry-on bag and a checked bag each run separately, and on international routes those add up fast. Budget for $50-100+ on top of the fare if you’re checking a bag for a week in Colombia, more if you want a seat assignment or the extra legroom rows. A $99 fare that becomes $220 after bags isn’t a bad deal — Colombia from Orlando has never had a direct budget option before — but it’s not the number in the ad either.

Should You Actually Book This?

Depends entirely on whether your travel dates fall inside the window Frontier is selling.

1. Your trip needs to land between January 14 and April 5, 2027. Outside that range, the introductory fare doesn’t apply — you’d be paying whatever Frontier’s standard pricing looks like once the route is actually flying.
2. Check which day of the week your dates fall on before you get excited. These are select-day fares, not every-day. A Tuesday departure might price at $99; a Saturday might not.
3. Confirm the blackout dates don’t eat your trip. March 23–30, 2027 is excluded entirely — that’s spring break territory for a lot of US school calendars, which is presumably exactly why Frontier carved it out.
4. Price the total, not the headline fare. Add a checked bag if you need one before comparing this to what a connecting itinerary on a full-service carrier would cost you.
5. Book before September 16, 11:59 p.m. Eastern, or none of the above matters, because the fare reverts to standard pricing the next morning.

If your dates fit and the math still favors Frontier once you add bags, this is a genuinely new option — nonstop Orlando-to-Colombia service didn’t exist before this announcement, on any carrier, at any price. If your dates don’t fit inside that narrow window, don’t force it. Standard Frontier pricing on a brand-new route in December, without the introductory discount, is a different calculation entirely, and there’s no reporting yet on what that steady-state fare will look like once the launch promo expires.

Why the Booking Window Is So Short

Five days between a public announcement and a fare cutoff is aggressive even by ultra-low-cost carrier standards. Part of that is deliberate — a short window creates urgency, and urgency sells seats on routes that haven’t flown a single passenger yet. Part of it is just how Frontier tends to operate; the airline has a pattern of tight promotional windows on new-route launches, betting that press coverage does the marketing work fast enough to fill the window before it closes.

Practically, that means there’s no “wait and see if it drops further” play here, the way there sometimes is with Thanksgiving or holiday fare tracking. This isn’t a fare that’s trending down and might dip lower next week. It’s a promotional rate with an expiration stamped on it, and after September 16 it simply reverts. If you’re going to book, the decision-making has to happen now, not after checking three more days of price alerts.

What Booking Tools Actually Help Here

Since this is a single-carrier promotional fare rather than a broad market movement, the usual fare-tracking tools matter less than they would for, say, Thanksgiving pricing. Still, a couple of things are worth doing before you commit:

Book directly at flyfrontier.com rather than through a third-party site. New-route promotional fares don’t always sync cleanly to metasearch engines in the first few days, and you want the airline’s own calendar view to confirm which specific dates hit $99, $129, or $169 rather than guessing.

Run the route on Google Flights anyway, even though it’s Frontier-exclusive pricing — our Google Flights vs. Skyscanner comparison covers how each tool handles budget-carrier fares, and it’s a fast way to sanity-check that a connecting itinerary on another airline isn’t actually cheaper once you add Frontier’s bag fees into the total.

If you land the fare, start planning eSIM coverage for Colombia now rather than waiting until December. Our Airalo vs. Holafly vs. Saily comparison covers South America coverage specifically, and Colombia isn’t a country where you want to be hunting for a local SIM card at baggage claim in Medellín.

Who Should Book This Week

Travelers with genuinely flexible January-through-April dates who’ve wanted to visit Medellín, Bogotá, or Cartagena: this is the moment. Nonstop from Orlando at these prices hasn’t existed before, and there’s no signal it’ll be repeated once the introductory window closes.

Anyone chasing a specific fixed date — a wedding, a work trip, a trip tied to someone else’s schedule — needs to check that date against the select-day and blackout restrictions before assuming the fare applies. Don’t book assuming flexibility you don’t actually have.

Travelers who fly with checked bags every trip should do the full-cost math before treating $99 as the real price. It’s a strong deal for a carry-on-only trip. It’s a more ordinary deal once a checked bag and a seat assignment get added, and worth comparing against connecting options on carriers with more generous baggage policies.

The Bottom Line

Frontier’s first-ever South America service is real, it’s launching in December, and the introductory fares — $99 to Bogotá, $129 to Cartagena, $169 to Medellín — are genuinely the cheapest way this route has ever been sold. The catch is the calendar: book before September 16 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern, fly on a select day between January 14 and April 5, 2027, and skip the March 23–30 blackout. Add bag fees to your mental math before you compare this to anything else, because the sticker price and the total price aren’t the same number on Frontier. If your dates line up, this is a five-days-left decision, not a someday one.

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Details current as of September 11, 2026, based on Frontier Airlines’ official press release and reporting from WFTV, The Points Guy, and Simple Flying. Fares, schedules, and route approvals are subject to change and require government authorization — verify current pricing and availability directly at flyfrontier.com before booking.