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WOW Air is again offering $99 airfare to Iceland as well as $149 flights to Europe. The $99 fares can be found mostly between the west coast–Los Angeles and San Francisco–and Reykjavik, now through next May.

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WOW Air is an Icelandic low cost carrier. It offers flights from Baltimore, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and most recently Pittsburgh to Reykjavik with connections to Europe.

The Fares

Iceland: $99 One Way

From Los Angeles, $99 fares are available in December and run through next May.screen-shot-2016-11-18-at-1-02-14-pm

From San Francisco, $99 fares are available November through next May.

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There’s also a couple days next October between Pittsburgh and Reykjavik with $99 fares.

Continental Europe: $149 One Way

There are $145-$149 fares from the United States to 11 European cities (London, Paris, Stockholm, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Dublin, Edinburgh, Brussels, Cork, and Berlin) spanning from the holidays through the end of the summer next year.

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Note that where the graphic says Washington D.C, they are actually referring to BWI in Baltimore.

Fees

Wow Air’s $99 fares, and all of its tickets, just include a seat and up to 10 kg (22 pounds) in one carry on. Thankfully they doubled this allowance last year–you used to only be allowed 11 pounds.

Additional weight in your carry on, checked bags, and even seat selection increase the price. Here is the fee page for WOW Air.

From the West coast to Iceland, Wow Air charges $50.99 each way to increase your carry on weight allowance to 12 kg (26 lbs) if you do it online beforehand (otherwise at the airport it would cost $69.99 at check-in or $99.99 at the gate). They charge $70.99 each way for a checked bag of up to 20 kg (44 lbs), again only if you do it online beforehand. Waiting until you get to the airport will cost you $79.99 at check-in or $99.99 at the gate.

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I’m with Scott in the sense that I support one bag travel. So with an allowance of 22 pounds, you may not even need to check a bag. $99 all in for a one way to Iceland is incredible.

Then I would fly a low cost carrier from Reykjavik to continental Europe.

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Low Cost Carrier Routes from Reykjavik

I would eventually fly home from continental Europe, either for 22,500 American Airlines miles on an off peak economy award, or in Business Class with United miles. This would mean seeing Iceland and another European country for probably under $160 plus 22,500 miles all in for all the flights (if I made sure to return from a city with low departure taxes). That’s ridiculously cheap.

Best Way to Buy the Ticket

Credit card links have been removed from posts and added to the menu bar at the top of every page of MileValue under the heading Top Travel Credit Cards.

For a limited time, the Barclaycard Arrival Plus comes with 50,000 bonus Arrival miles after spending $3,000 on purchases in the first 90 days.

You can redeem the miles to offset any travel expense greater than $100 inside your Barclaycard account within 120 days of the purchase– so put your WOW Air flights on the card and get your money back for them in the form of a statement credit. Examples of other travel expenses you can redeem Arrival miles on are taxes and fees on award tickets, hotels, Airbnb, car rentals, cruises, etc. Here is How to Redeem Arrival Miles. The Arrival miles you’d earn from meeting the minimum spending requirement, 50k from the bonus, 6k from the spending, are worth $560 in travel expense statement credits.

Read Scott’s full review of the Barclaycard Arrival Plus.

Bottom Line

Interested in traveling to Iceland or Europe on the cheap? If you can pack light, there are plenty of $99 / $149 fares to get you there. Right now the majority of $99 fares are between Los Angeles-Reykjavik and San Francisco-Reykjavik and last through next May. The $149 fares to Europe are from various US cities and are scattered through this year and next–check the graphic at the top of WOW Air’s homepage to find them easily.

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With a bonus of 60,000 points after $4,000 spend in the first 3 months, 5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel℠ and 3x points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs), this card truly cannot be beat for getting started!


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