Iceland is a popular vacation destination for those looking for cold temperatures and adventure travel. While a lot of airlines fly there seasonally for summer, service for the rest of the year is more limited, with Icelandair of course being the dominant carrier.
While Icelandair isn’t the most exciting carrier on earth, the airline has a large network in North America and Europe, and often has reasonable fares. The airline also has a great stopover program for Iceland, which lets travelers visit Iceland as part of a larger itinerary.
Given that I’m planning a trip on Icelandair, I wanted to talk a bit about the (sad) state of trying to redeem miles on the airline which is less than ideal. The way I view it, there are three (sort) of ways to redeem miles on Icelandair, so I wanted to cover those, and ask OMAAT readers if there’s anything I’m missing.
In this post:
Icelandair’s Saga Club program is of limited value
Icelandair has its own Saga Club loyalty program, though I’d say that for 99.99% of OMAAT readers, there’s not a whole lot there that’s worth looking into. For one, there aren’t many ways to actually earn Saga Club points, given that the program doesn’t partner with any major transferable points currencies.
Beyond that, Saga Club just doesn’t offer great redemption values. The program has dynamic award pricing, and generally each point gets you somewhere around 0.5 cents toward the cost of a ticket. So unless you’re from Iceland and exclusively fly Icelandair, this program isn’t worth bothering with (and even if you frequently fly with the airline, you’re still better off crediting to Alaska Mileage Plan, in my opinion).
Alaska Mileage Plan allows redemptions on Icelandair
I’m a big fan of the Alaska Mileage Plan program, and one of the things that I really like about it is how Alaska has unique airline partners. Alaska Mileage Plan is the only partner airline frequent flyer program that lets you redeem on Icelandair.
Redemptions on Icelandair follow the standard Mileage Plan award chart for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, regardless of whether you’re flying Icelandair to North America or Europe. You can find that chart below.
Note that Icelandair Saga Class (which is Icelandair’s most premium cabin) is theoretically priced as premium economy rather than business class, for the purposes of this award chart. That means one-way awards would cost the following amounts, based on the cumulative distance flown:
- An itinerary of up to 1,500 miles would start at 7,500 miles in economy, or 10,000 miles in premium economy
- An itinerary of 1,501-3,500 miles would start at 22,500 miles one-way, or 30,000 miles in premium economy
- An itinerary of 3,501-5,000 miles would start at 27,500 miles one-way, or 35,000 miles in premium economy
In theory that all sounds like it could be a decent deal, especially given that free stopovers are allowed on Mileage Plan awards, meaning you could fly between a point in Europe and a point in the United States with a stopover in Iceland.
Unfortunately this is where the issues come into play, which make this opportunity much less enticing:
- Alaska Mileage Plan adds carrier imposed surcharges to Icelandair awards; they’re around $100-150 one-way, which isn’t terrible, but when you consider the carrier’s reasonable revenue fares, it cuts into the value
- As far as I can tell, there’s never Saga Class (premium economy) award availability, but rather only economy award availability
- Even the economy award availability is only the “starting at” price, and you’ll often find that pricing is much more expensive than the listed prices; for example, for a one-way flight between the United States and Iceland, pricing is often 40,000 miles rather than 22,500 miles
Is there something I’m missing when it comes to redeeming Alaska miles for Saga Class travel on Icelandair? Maybe I’m just not searching the right routes, but I haven’t been able to find any availability in the past year.
It seems to me like Icelandair just isn’t willing to work with partners on decent redemption values, and like Alaska is basically on the hook for revenue fares, or something.
Redeeming credit card points is worth considering
The last option to redeem points for travel on Icelandair is the most obvious, and that’s to just redeem credit card points as cash toward the cost of a ticket. I wouldn’t even usually mention this as an option, since it’s not really a “hack.” But given that there are no other good options on Icelandair, I do think it’s worth bringing up.
For example, if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card (review), you can redeem points at the rate of 1.5 cents each toward the cost of an airline ticket. Meanwhile if you have the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (review), you can redeem points at the rate of 1.0 cents each toward the cost of an airline ticket.
Since each point is worth a certain amount toward the cost of a ticket, you’d just want to find the Icelandair ticket that’s the best value. As a value maximizer, I also really struggle with actually committing to an Icelandair itinerary.
For example, Icelandair pretty commonly charges around $2,000 roundtrip for nonstop flights between the United States and Iceland.
The thing is, fares are often almost exactly the same if you continue to another destination in Europe, and just do a stopover (of however long you’d like) in Iceland in one direction. Like, how can I say no to several extra hours of flying for “free?” But at the same time, I don’t actually want to go anywhere beyond Iceland!
Icelandair often also has reasonable one-way cash fares originating in Europe to the United States, which allow a stopover. For example, you could fly from Copenhagen to New York in Saga Class for around $900, with a stopover for as long as you’d like in Iceland.
At that point do you fly another airline across the Atlantic, go to Copenhagen, and then originate there?
Icelandair does sometimes have fare specials, so I guess it’s worth keeping an eye out for those. If anyone sees any fares originating in the US directly to Iceland and back that are materially better than the above, please let me know.
So anyway, that’s the constant struggle in my head with justifying an Icelandair itinerary on a revenue ticket.
Bottom line
Icelandair has the largest route network to and from Iceland, so there are plenty of situations where flying the airline is worthwhile. However, for those looking to redeem miles for premium cabin travel, it’s a struggle. Icelandair’s own loyalty program is revenue based and has bad redemption values, never mind that the points are hard to come by. Meanwhile Alaska Mileage Plan doesn’t seem to have access to premium cabin awards on Icelandair, unless I’m missing something.
That leaves paying cash — or redeeming credit card points as cash toward the cost of a ticket — as the best option. That’s still not ideal, but I can’t think of any other better options.
Let me also acknowledge that some people are probably saying “it’s not a long flight, just fly economy.” I totally hear you, and that’s fair. However, with all my travel, part of the goal is to review premium cabin airline experiences, and I do want to review Icelandair Saga Class again, as it has been around a decade since I’ve flown it.
Are there any other good options I’m missing? Is there something I’m overlooking with Icelandair Saga Class award availability through Mileage Plan?
I know you make your money reviewing premium products, so in that case, just suck it up and buy a ticket. Otherwise just fly Play. I flew them in May and for a lost cost carrier I was quite impressed. I would happily fly them anytime.
It’s hard to justify using Alaska miles and paying almost $200 in taxes for economy when you can buy a one way on Play Airlines for $250 including a full sized carry on.
Redemption Alaska miles to Europe from the west coast is horrible their wording Qatar main cabin. In fact your vaulted Alaska Air redemption is no where near what it once was. I say that as a AS flyer for 30 years working on 2mm my disappointment is growing.
I’ve done Finnair on the outbound from NA to Iceland—requires back tracking from HEL but at least it’s a true business class on the overnight redeye (and a slightly longer flight). I’ve found Icelandair Saga class to be perfectly decent for a daytime Westbound flight from Iceland (better than most premium economy products given the nicely padded seat with decent legroom), and the paid fares going westbound are decent that it isn’t worth trying to...
I’ve done Finnair on the outbound from NA to Iceland—requires back tracking from HEL but at least it’s a true business class on the overnight redeye (and a slightly longer flight). I’ve found Icelandair Saga class to be perfectly decent for a daytime Westbound flight from Iceland (better than most premium economy products given the nicely padded seat with decent legroom), and the paid fares going westbound are decent that it isn’t worth trying to use miles. I have a 100% rate of getting SSSS at KEF, however, on multiple one-way flights with Icelandair, and the process can take a while given all the NA flights basically leave around the same time. Just something to be aware of and plan some extra time for, especially for those of us used to priority lanes through security and arriving an hour before departure :)
Ben, I flew FI Saga on an Alaska award as recently as last year. They used to be difficult to find, but not impossible. It may be that they're impossible now due to the lower prices. AS has really gone down with regard to its value as an award program.
A couple of years ago I won 100K Saga Club miles with a newsletter signup. I exchanged those for a 350$ Amazon giftcard, not sure if they still offer this option. It was difficult to find much value beyond that.
Funny this should come up today. My spouse just gave me my marching orders last night - she wants to go to Iceland and told me to figure out a way. So this morning I have been going through exactly the same experience as Ben describes here, finding the same disappointments. To answer your question, no, you are not missing much. Icelandair is a huge disappointment - it's coach seats are cramped and uncomfortable, it's...
Funny this should come up today. My spouse just gave me my marching orders last night - she wants to go to Iceland and told me to figure out a way. So this morning I have been going through exactly the same experience as Ben describes here, finding the same disappointments. To answer your question, no, you are not missing much. Icelandair is a huge disappointment - it's coach seats are cramped and uncomfortable, it's "saga" class (in reality, a premium economy rather than a true business class) is only marginally better for comfort, but can't be booked with Alaska miles. You *can* buy it with points through Chase but prepare for some sticker-shock. Since all flights to Iceland from where I live are all 7-8 hour overnight redeyes, I want an actual lay-flat seat or something close to it. United actually has a couple options that technically would meet that requirement, but the long flight is on an old 757 with really tight "kinda sorta Polaris" space (tiny footwells), and the kicker is that the United flights cost more than award redemptions to New Zealand.
As I literally just explained to the wife minutes ago, there are no good options for us. Have to pick from the least-shitty options available. She then asked, "Have you checked to see if Qatar flies to Iceland" No they don't. "How about Turkish?" Nope. Nice try.
I love her but there are still no good options for flights to Iceland. Sigh.
Jet2 fly to KEF from EDI, it's just 750 miles so it can't be more than a couple of hours. They're not a luxury airline, but they have everything that you need for a flight of that length, just buy a bulkhead seat and add inflight meals/lounges during the booking as required.
I know, that's not a completely terrible idea (I went to the Faroe Islands via EDI so I know all about the tradeoffs). I've considered flying to someplace in north/northwestern Europe (on a decent airline) and then turning back to KEF on a short paid flight - and I still might do just that - but in my case we are trying to squeeze Iceland into a fairly short window (12 days including travel time),...
I know, that's not a completely terrible idea (I went to the Faroe Islands via EDI so I know all about the tradeoffs). I've considered flying to someplace in north/northwestern Europe (on a decent airline) and then turning back to KEF on a short paid flight - and I still might do just that - but in my case we are trying to squeeze Iceland into a fairly short window (12 days including travel time), and going via Europe starts to eat into our usable time on the ground. If I can find a reasonable way to to that for the outbound, then catch a more direct daytime flight back for the return that might work (we're on the US west coast so some additional challenges added). Thanks for the suggestion.
Good briefing, ty! I hope you add this to the FT thread.
There’s a FT thread about saga class awards. Alaska explicitly says they are unable to book them even by phone,
There are more premium options available, if one bothers to look.
Like?.........
Having never seen the Northern Lights, I’m flying Icelandair in March (it’s the only airline flying from North America to Iceland that time of year) and wound up deciding to pay for the ticket and credit the miles to my JetBlue account. Not spectacular, but the best
…option I found.
If you just want to see the northern lights, only a fool would fly to Iceland for that. There is absolutely nothing special or magical about Iceland that makes it "better" for seeing the northern lights than anyplace else at the same latitude, including plenty of easier-to-get-to (and much less expensive) places in Canada or Alaska. The whole "go to Iceland for the northern lights experience" is just a marketing scam intended to trick the...
If you just want to see the northern lights, only a fool would fly to Iceland for that. There is absolutely nothing special or magical about Iceland that makes it "better" for seeing the northern lights than anyplace else at the same latitude, including plenty of easier-to-get-to (and much less expensive) places in Canada or Alaska. The whole "go to Iceland for the northern lights experience" is just a marketing scam intended to trick the ignorant. It sure works well.
Iceland is much more interesting destination than Alaska or northern Canada. March is a good time to visit, because the tourist numbers are manageable and the Icelanders are emerging from their winter gloom as the days get longer.
No, it is not you, Ben, AS has been pricing most awards in a semi-dynamic way for a while now.
No good way for FI unless paying cash, which is not a bad idea anyway. And if you want, you can just do direct turn or stay 1 night in a european city to review the hotel. You can get more flying done with maybe 1 extra day spent, and it lowers the cpm.
No, it is not you, Ben, AS has been pricing most awards in a semi-dynamic way for a while now.
No good way for FI unless paying cash, which is not a bad idea anyway. And if you want, you can just do direct turn or stay 1 night in a european city to review the hotel. You can get more flying done with maybe 1 extra day spent, and it lowers the cpm.
AS program has really had many invisible devaluations recently, sadly nobody covers them. Just for TPAC I can think of:
- All CX F/J awards are blocked.
- All JL F awards are blocked.
- JL J seems to be significantly less available compared to BA/AA, and very significant caching problems persist
- All HU awards are blocked due to technical reasons.
- JX J saver awards are unicorn status now, even on short haul routes to Japan. Only HKG/MFM are available on a regular basis, while all other Asia routes hop to the insane 50k mile band.
Meanwhile TATL has never been very good:
- DE is useful but only to FRA. Anywhere beyond that you have to shell out 200+ dollar for the flight to your final destination because DE does not fly to a vast majority of cities in Europe.
- EI is hard to find and semi-dynamic
- BA is non-starter with insane surcharges
THANK YOU!! Everything correct, I feel like after Ben moved to MIA he began missing all the slow-boil shenanigans AS was pulling. And then they nerfed Money&Miles, the last way to get anything near 1¢/mile of real value.
And TPG has been smoking hopium on the AS valuation for *quite some time* now. I can't even...