When I saw a dozen blogs writing about WOW Air having another huge discount sale to launch their Boston and D.C. low cost carrier flight service to Reykjavik, London and Copenhagen, I thought to myself, hope my flights are not lower priced now than they were in October.
WOW flights to Copenhagen are not lower priced with this sale. Boston to Copenhagen in July on Wow Air is hundreds more dollars now than it was in October 2014 during the last blogger WOW frenzy.
Still, there are some very good fares for travel through May 2015 and beginning again in September 2015.
From BOS, Boston and BWI, Baltimore these airfares offer great opportunities for discount trips to mainland Europe via Reykjavik, Iceland.
The airfare to Reykjavik, Iceland is lowest with $99 fares for BOS-KEF. Return flights are higher priced, starting at $172.49.
WOW Air $271.49 round trip BOS-KEF April 9 – April 16, 2015.
WOW Air to Iceland and onward to Europe
The advantage of a ticket to only Reykjavik is it allows you to stopover in Iceland and then buy a separate ticket to another destination in Europe. You can also use miles at the European award level. Airfare to many places in Europe is quite low priced, if you are flexible with schedule. In this post, I show how two separate WOW tickets to London flying BOS-KEF and KEF-LGW is priced far less than a through ticket BOS-KEF-LGW.
KEF Airlines operating year round in Reykjavik
There are several carriers flying through Reykjavik including easyjet, FlyBE, Icelandic, Norwegian, SAS and WOW.
The WOW flight arrives from Boston at 4:05am on Friday, April 10. This itinerary allows six nights in some other European city if you fly out of KEF on Friday and return to KEF the following Thursday, April 16 for the flight back to Boston.
The deal for economy flyers is a round trip flight from Reykjavik to somewhere in Europe combined with USA-Iceland on WOW can potentially save hundreds of dollars compared to published airfares for Paris or London or Amsterdam.
The WOW website is kind of buggy. I can find a $99 fare BOS-KEF on April 9 and a $140 WOW fare KEF-LGW on April 10, however, the website won’t return a fare for BOS-LGW on April 9 and the fare shown for April 10 is $358.
Most of my searches used Google Flights in conjunction with WOWAir. I closed WOWAir in my browser several times as it acted up in searches.
Book two separate WOW tickets BOS-KEF ($99) and KEF-LGW ($140) to save $120 on one way airfare to London.
London, Manchester, Frankfurt, Warsaw, Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen are some places with flights under $150 USD one way from KEF Reykjavik airport in Iceland for dates I checked in mid-April.
One-way flights from KEF to European Airports
April 10 flights after 4:05am arrival in Reykjavik
London: KEF-LHR – Icelandair $157 7:40am-11:45am
Paris: KEF-CDG WOW Air $154 6:30am – 11:50am
Stay two nights in Iceland (using Club Carlson Visa membership to pay 50,000 points for two nights), then fly to Paris on April 12 and the fare drops to under $100 one way on Wow Air.
Other low fares from KEF to Europe on April 10, 2015
- Warsaw: KEF-WAW – WOW Air $125 3:10pm-9:05pm
- Stockholm: KEF-ARN – Icelandair $138 7:35am-12:30pm
- Copenhagen: KEF-CPH – WOW Air $100 7:00am-12:05pm
- Berlin: KEF-SXF (April 12) – WOW Air $140 6:10am-11:40am.
- Amsterdam: KEF-CPH – SAS $188 11:15am – 6:25pm (via Oslo)
- Rome: KEF-FCO – SAS $195 11:15am – 10:05am (overnight in Oslo)
- Bergen, Norway KEF-BGO – Norwegian $68 11:20am-3:40pm.
Getting back to the USA is the more expensive part of the trip
Flying WOW Air to Iceland and buying a connecting flight to somewhere else in Europe is inexpensive. Getting back to Iceland from Europe and getting back to the USA is generally the more expensive part of the trip.
A one way mileage award from Europe to USA is one good option for 20,000 to 30,000 miles.
I’ll continue with the original $272 WOW Air round trip itinerary BOS-KEF Thursday, April 9 to Thursday, April 16, 2015.
Bergen, Norway is a deal at $68 on Norwegian Air, another low cost carrier. Let’s say I leave Friday, April 10 for Bergen and decide to return April 14 for two nights in Reykjavik before flying back to Boston.
There is competition on the BGO-KEF route and getting back to Iceland is cheap.
Bergen, Norway is $83 on Icelandair one way to KEF Reykjavik, Iceland on Tuesday April 14. The fare is only $53 on Monday, April 13.
This allows an itinerary Boston – Reykjavik, Iceland – Bergen, Norway for under $400 all-in from USA to Europe for a week in April 2015, excluding luggage and seat fees (can add another $150). You do not have to pay luggage or seat fees if you are willing to gamble on a middle seat and can travel extremely light.
You should be able to get to many airports in Europe flying to Iceland for $99 and catching an onward flight for $100 to $200 one way. USA to Europe for under $300 one-way is a great deal. Return to the USA on a miles award ticket or expect to pay about $100 to $150 more on return flights from Europe to BOS/BWI.
$272 Boston to Iceland round trip is a real deal. You can get even more value out of this airfare sale by combining Iceland with an onward flight to Europe.
I wrote about WOW Air bag fees and seat fees in October 2014 when I purchased tickets for July 2015 travel BOS-KEF-CPH.
Loyalty Traveler – WOW $480 Boston-Copenhagen July 2015 (October 24, 2014)
Loyalty Traveler – Analysis of WOW Airlines low summer fares to London and Copenhagen (October 23, 2014)
For those of us in California, Norwegian Air has the primary low cost airfare deals flying from Oakland OAK and Los Angeles LAX. Fares have been as low as $350 all-in for OAK-ARN Stockholm in past week for travel into April 2015. Those deals have been around for over a month.
Loyalty Traveler – Norwegian OAK-ARN $373 round trip Feb 2015 (Dec 11, 2014)
