Icelandair has a $413 round trip fare available for New York JFK to London LHR on about a dozen departure dates from late October to early December. The price may have risen to $477 when you check fares since it looks like Icelandair is already in the process of raising fares today. Paris is as low as $518 round trip. Many of the deals we have seen from American, Delta and United out of New York airports to London and Paris were price matches to Icelandair fares.
While the major airlines have done a good job matching Icelandair fares from New York, there are deals from other Icelandair airports like Minneapolis to Munich at $591 that has Delta and United offering competitive low fares at $590 round trip or Icelandair’s MSP to Paris at $705-$713 in October that none of the alliance airlines come close to matching with their fares on these dates over $1,000 round trip.
Icelandair offers some of the best deals to Europe from a variety of USA airports and unlike Norwegian or its fellow Icelandic budget airline WOW Air, Icelandair does not charge for seat assignments, two checked bags or carry-on bag. Plus Icelandair lets you book a near free stopover in Reykjavik, typically about $15 more than a no stopover round trip ticket.
Many of the low fare deals we have seen from American, Delta and United since the beginning of June were a response to Icelandair low fares. The persistent Europe deals in a six weeks fare war started around May 31 between the alliance airlines, then got a fresh kick around June 9 in what appeared to me as an attack on low Icelandair USA airport hubs when they put many cities in Europe on sale and the legacy airlines lowered their ticket prices to compete.
Loyalty Traveler – Delta and United Europe deals from SEA, PDX DEN, MCO, MSP Icelandair airports (June 10, 2016) includes a list of Icelandair airports in USA.
Icelandair consistently has the lowest fares from their USA routes to many airports in Europe, but they have a limited number of planes, so when the major alliance airlines compete there are far more low fare dates available. Still, Icelandair has some great deals if you don’t have a preference for an alliance airline and simply want a good deal low fare to Europe. My wife loved traveling last summer Boston to Iceland to Copenhagen on WOW for the shorter flight times. She prefers shorter flights to 11-hour long haul flights from California to Europe (of which she has one of those long haul flights in a couple of days), but I really dislike the bag fees for both carry-on and checked bags on top of paying for a seat assignment. Norwegian Air has outrageous seat assignment fees from California at around $50 one-way to Europe.
Icelandair New York JFK – Reykjavik, Iceland KEF – London Gatwick LGW
$412.86 Sat Nov 13 – Sat Nov 20 (fare priced at 8:30am Pacific time July 10).
Priceline ticket at $413 round trip is great deal. These flights priced at $477 on Icelandair and Orbitz website when Google Flights showed $419. The Priceline ticket price may not last much longer.
There are still low $504 fares with AA, UA and DL from NYC airports (EWR, JFK, LGA) to London LHR and even lower American Airlines fares at $466 round trip for JFK-LGW with British Airways nonstop flights.
American Airlines New York JFK – London Gatwick
$466.26 round trip Sat Nov 5 – Sun Nov 13
Icelandair may be a little airline, but they sure seem to be having a big consumer effect on airline ticket prices to Europe lately.
Google Flights New York – Paris Fares Sat Nov 5 – Sun Nov 12
Norwegian $397 round trip, but fees for seats and checked bag eliminate low fare savings.
All three alliances and Icelandair offer round trip fares between $519-$526 from mid-Oct to mid-Dec.
Icelandair beats all allliance fares for travel in September and early October at $550 round trip when the lowest alliance airline ticket price is over $700 round trip.
Icelandair Newark EWR – Reykjavik (72-hour stopover) – Paris CDG – KEF – New York JFK
$566.22 round trip with Iceland stopover. Sat Sep 10 EWR-KEF Reykjavik, Iceland, Wed Sep 14 KEF-Paris CDG, Tue Sep 20 CDG-JFK
This example of an Icelandair stopover ticket shows the price rises by about $16 to $567 over the $551 ticket price without a stopover. In my experience, this is about the typical price increase when an Iceland stopover is added to your Icelandair itinerary.
That being said, the example I show is not an itinerary I would personally choose with a departure from EWR and return from JFK. I was just too lazy to keep searching for a better itinerary. I selected the dates and there were several flight choices for each segment. Prices fluctuated from $565 to over $900 depending on flight combination. The lowest one I quickly located was EWR-KEF-CDG-JFK. With a little more diligence you can locate low stopover fares with same departure and arrival airport in New York.
In summary, Icelandair offers some great deals to Europe with the option for a stopover in Iceland. Many of the fare deals we are seeing these past few weeks from American, Delta and United are low fare competition to Icelandair deals from Chicago, New York and Washington. Some of the best deals to Europe found from Portland PDX, Seattle SEA, Denver DEN and Minneapolis MSP tend to be Icelandair low fares or alliance airline fare deals motivated by Icelandair discount ticket prices.
Loyalty Traveler curated Airfare Deals and Google Flights and Kayak Explore tutorials.
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