Flavor Flav Gets Spirit Airlines Refund, Benefits After Missed Flight Rant

Flavor Flav has a few reasons to give Spirit Airlines another shot after flipping out on the air carrier over a missed flight -- he's not only getting his money back, he's getting big-time perks.

A rep for Flavor Flav tells TMZ ... Spirit finished the investigation into FF's angry incident in Las Vegas, and decided to give the rap icon a full refund.

We're also told Spirit is upgrading his frequent flier status to "Gold" ... which is the airline's highest frequent flier tier. That status means Flav will never have to pay for any of the budget airline's add-on charges, like the ones for baggage and seat selection.

TMZ broke the story ... Flav narrowly missed a flight earlier this month in Sin City, and we got video of him flipping out on the gate agent who shut the door in his face.

Flav's camp said he typically waits to board flights after all the other passengers because folks like to take pictures with him and he doesn't want to hold up the boarding process. So, he waited, but the gate agent closed the door, shutting out Flav and 2 others.

FF eventually apologized to all the folks who witnessed his airport rant.