Icelandair is an airline partner with Alaska Airlines, JetBlue and Virgin America for connections to USA airports with Icelandair flights. I find it pretty exciting to see sub-$600 Icelandair fares from either San Jose SJC ($567) or San Francisco SFO ($590) to Brussels, Belgium and Munich, Germany via Alaska Airlines flights to either Portland PDX or Seattle SEA.
These fares have me wondering if we will start seeing the major alliances compete for European routes with Icelandair from the San Francisco Bay Area in the way they have posted so many sub-$500 fares in 2016 from Portland, Seattle and Denver.
To reiterate some points I try to pass along to budget flyers unfamiliar with Icelandair, the airline allows:
- two free checked bags (Norwegian ($45 per bag) and WOW (about $70 each way) charge high fees for each checked bag.
- no seat assignment fee (Norwegian ($45 each way) and WOW (up to $49 each way) charge high fees)
- near free Iceland stopover (my Icelandair fare searches indicate adding a stopover in Iceland generally can be done for about $10 to $30 more than the low fare ticket price).
The deal with Icelandair is they have limited dates with low fares, but there are generally dates with lower fares than any other airline, even WOW and Norwegian, if you have flexibility and you need to check bags and want a confirmed seat assignment.
Departure Dates: I see sub-$600 fares for departures in Oct, Nov and Dec. These deals are found on Icelandair website or Google Flights or ITA Matrix.
Booking Code: Icelandair Economy N (Finnair Plus 50% for oneworld flyers). Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan does not award miles for Icelandair economy N code.
San Jose SJC – Seattle SEA (Alaska Air) – Reykjavik KEF (Icelandair) – Munich MUC
$595.69 USD round trip Wed Nov 9 – Thu Nov 17
Icelandair San Francisco SFO – Seattle SEA – Reykjavik KEF – Brussels BRU – Seattle SEA – SFO
$590.63 round trip Sat Oct 29 – Fri Nov 4
Loyalty Traveler curated Airfare Deals and Google Flights and Kayak Explore tutorials.
