By Carly Coombs | Posted: February 12, 2026

If you are planning on flying a budget airline soon, there’s a possibility you can get your tickets cheaper by purchasing them in person at the airport.

Two budget airlines flying out of the Boise Airport allow for tickets to be purchased in person: Frontier and Allegiant.

The practice is common among budget airlines (Breeze and Allegiant do the same at the Provo Airport, Frontier at the Salt Lake City Airport, Allegiant in Idaho Falls, and various budget airlines in Las Vegas) since these airlines often apply “optional” fees to tickets when customers purchase online or over the phone.

Because these fees are considered optional (since you can avoid them at the airport), airlines don’t have to pay the 7.5% federal excise tax that is added to base fares in the U.S., saving the airline a bit of cash.

Allegiant adds a “carrier usage charge” of $22 per segment on each of its flights, and Frontier adds a “carrier interface charge” of up to $23 per segment.

Let’s look at an example from Allegiant for a nonstop flight from Boise to Las Vegas:

For this round-trip, nonstop flight (before any bags or seat selection fees are added), the carrier usage charge is $44. So if you bought this ticket at the airport, your flight would cost $69. For a family of five, you would save $220.

Here’s an example of Frontier for a flight from Boise to Denver:

On this nonstop, round-trip flight, the carrier fee is $33 for a flight that costs $114. If you were to buy at the airport, your flight would cost $81 instead. Again, that’s before adding bags or seat selection to your ticket.

If you’re flying on Frontier and have a layover, the carrier interface fee will likely be higher since it is applied to each segment of the flight. Here’s an example from Boise to Orlando with a layover in Denver.

The full price for this flight is $164, but the carrier interface charge is $92 of that final price. So buying at the airport would make this flight cost only $72. If you’re flying with a family of five, that’s about $460 in savings.

When can you buy tickets in person at the Boise Airport?

For Frontier, the airline states on its website that its ticket counters typically open two hours before a departing flight and close an hour before departure.

While Allegiant usually lists specific ticket counter hours for other airports on its website, Boise customers can instead purchase tickets at the counter up to an hour after an Allegiant flight departs.

You can check the airport flight board for plane departure times for both Frontier and Allegiant in order to determine when you can go and purchase tickets.

Remember, always purchase your tickets in advance to get the best price. Waiting until the day you want to fly risks the flight being sold out or the price increasing significantly.

Additionally, if you plan on also purchasing add-ons like seat selection or baggage, make sure to purchase them later online, after you have bought your ticket at the airport. Buying any extras at the airport will cost more than it does to purchase them online.