Icleandair Cuts Saga Premium Lounge Access Perks

Concur that this is a largely meaningless change for most in that cabin. It is still a bit cheap of them, and in my experience, that tracks.

I was denied Saga Lounge access at Keflavik despite holding a Saga Premium Flex ticket because the second leg of my journey to Greenland was on a single-class prop plane – even though my entire journey was booked as Saga Premium Flex.

That might fit into the narrowest reading of the regs, but reasonable parties would include that lounge access as I booked a Saga Premium Flex journey and had no control over the second plane being single-class.

Lucky, stop taking the side of airlines and hotels repeatedly. I’ve been reading your blog for many years and I have noticed a recent trend where you increasingly often say “this isn’t unreasonable” to cut this service or that perk. But in this case, this is definitely taking away from an advertised feature and moving toward worse and worse a la carte premium fares.

Aside from your weirdly apologist reaction to this cutback, for flyers from JFK to KEF, there is no priority pass option at T7. For BOS, FI uses the BA lounge, which is not accessible via priority pass.

So call this out for what it is, a nakedly profit-oriented and anti-consumer move by Icelandair.

YHBU takes a much more appropriate tone criticizing Icelandair for this approach, which actually reduces their premium selling attractiveness of Icelandait’s offering.

„and I imagine many Saga Premium customers have those memberships“: I am not sure if that is the case, especially in Europe where it’s less easy to gain access via a credit card.
And while I have a PP, my kids and partner don’t have it…

These will normally be leisure travellers who don't fly intercontinentally more than once a year and will likely be in family/friend groups. They have no reason to buy any lounge membership for their European flights. An intercontinental 'business class' ticket without lounge access isn't 'reasonable', FI aren't a low cost carrier and the tickets from/to (as opposed to via) Iceland aren't exactly cheap either- MAN-KEF is only 2.5 hours but a C return goes for over £600.

A bit annoying, we fly in about 10 days from ORD/KEF, then KEF/HEL taking advantage of a 5 night layover. Return CPH/KEF/DEN. Booked Saga Premium (not flex) last September and was promised lounge access at both O'hare and Copenhagen. Not too happy to see the change. I flew Iceland Air about 10 years ago and swore never again, yet here I am.

Icleandair?

Fly Icelandair on a regular basis from JFK in Saga Class….very disappointed to read this.
I’m disappointed that with my upcoming trip next week that I will not be able to go to the lounge at JFK. When I look at current bookings, it states lounge access. Very frustrated and I look forward to switching loyalties to another airline.

Bugger - booked Saga Premium from NCE to KEF yesterday. I would have added Flex had I known this.

And those of us who have already purchased our tickets based partly on full lounge access are SOL, I guess. Hardly seems reasonable to be changing the rules after they've taken our money, but I guess it's another case of screw you, customer.

IANAL TINLA but it at least seems to me that if someone wanted to cancel their ticket as a result (say, to book on another carrier where they have lounge access at all stops), this would be worthy of a dispute (Icelandair sold you a ticket that they said included access as part of the ticket, and now suddenly it doesn't). I don't think lounge access is (reasonably) one of those things they could say is subject to a change at their whim.

Whether that's worthy of such a fight is an exercise for the reader.

Flex is consistently 300€ more expensive. You can just buy lounge access for that price.

I have a Premium fare in May from Stockholm to MSP. It would have been nice to have received a more advanced warning rather than a few days before the change takes place.

According to the Icelandair website, this new rule applies to tickets purchased after April 1st. Tickets which have been purchased before April 1st still get lounge access.

From Iceland Air Website: New limitation to lounges only applies to tickets purchased after April 1, 2025.
https://www.icelandair.com/support/on-board/classes-of-service/#:~:text=*%20Check%20the%20allowance%20for%20the,Lounge%20access%20at%20Keflav%C3%ADk%20airport.

the change applies to tickets purchased after April 1 - how will other airlines/airports know that I should still have access?

how will this be organized? do you think all lounges will know this?

Actually it is a huge deal if there is a layover outside of Iceland.

Actually, it is not.

I don’t enjoy their recliner seats or older planes for that matter. And some airports like PDX don’t even have a contracted lounge. Other than a direct flight to KEF there’s no way I will fly them again.

This is most odd as my ticket purchased today stated lounge access was included and provides links to lounges outside of Iceland.