WOW Air changed its low cost business model in the past year by increasingly advertising low one way fares available only when buying a round trip ticket. Ticket prices from Europe to USA are generally higher than advertised one way ticket prices from USA to Europe.
The currently $149.99 advertised fare for San Francisco to Copenhagen is one I was interested in.
WOW Air San Francisco SFO – Keflavik KEF – Copenhagen CPH
$149.99 one-way Thu Jan 18
Then, I learned this fare is only available if you register your email and become a ‘MyWOW’ member. Joining MyWOW is free and quick, so no problem.
After joining MyWOW the ticket price for SFO-CPH showed up as $149.99. All good, so far.
Then, I learned that the $149.99 one-way ticket price is only applicable to a round trip ticket purchase. The lowest return flight Copenhagen to San Francisco is priced at $199.99 for a total ticket price $349.98.
WOW Air CPH-SFO $199.99 = $349.98 round trip SFO-CPH-SFO
WOW Air Abandoning One-Way Low Cost Carrier Model
I am only interested in buying a one way ticket to Copenhagen.
WOW’s actual lowest one-way ticket SFO-CPH is $239.99.
WOW Air San Francisco SFO – Keflavik KEF – Copenhagen CPH
$239.99 one-way Thu Jan 18
One of the basic tenets that allowed low cost carriers like Norwegian, WOW Air, Ryanair and others to thrive is true one-way pricing. This model is advantageous to flyers like me who move in circuitous routes. My plan is to fly California to Copenhagen, Denmark and fly home to California from Stockholm, Sweden.
There are incredibly low round trip fares with major alliance airlines from Stockholm to San Francisco and those tickets come with more benefits like no charges for seats, checked bags and meals.
Lufthansa Stockholm ARN – San Francisco SFO
2,425 SEK = $289.02 USD Sun Feb 4 – Wed Feb 28
I flew WOW Airlines in Jan and April 2017 on $69 and $70 one way tickets from San Francisco to Copenhagen. I flew back to California with Norwegian Stockholm ARN to Oakland OAK for $108 and $150. During these trips I flew to many other countries across Europe on low cost one-way tickets with Ryanair and Wizz.
The only advantage of WOW Airlines for me is the drive between Monterey and San Francisco SFO is much more pleasant than the drive to Oakland with the heavy and slow slog through traffic along Interstate 880 at rush hour perfectly timed with Norwegian’s London 5:25 pm and Stockholm 3:40pm flight arrival times.
Norwegian still operates true one-way ticket pricing model and Norwegian has a far more generous free carry-on bag policy allowing one regular size carry-on and a personal bag with a maximum weight of 10kg/22lb for combined bags. That is perfectly adequate for my travel style.
WOW Airlines changed its carry-on bag policy in 2017 to be more restrictive with only one personal item bag allowed that must fit under the seat.
Loyalty Traveler –
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