Redeeming Miles On Icelandair: What Are The Best Options To Score A Deal?

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.

I know people sometimes wonder about the options for redeeming miles & points for travel to Iceland, so in this post, I’d like to look at the options that are available if you want to redeem on Icelandair. Unfortunately they’re not great, so let’s cover what is available.

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 Atmos Rewards, in my opinion).

Redeeming partner miles & points on Icelandair

If you want to redeem partner points for travel on Icelandair, there are two programs worth considering — Alaska Atmos Rewards and JetBlue TrueBlue. Let’s go through both of those…

Redeeming Alaska Atmos Rewards points on Icelandair

I’m a big fan of the Alaska Atmos Rewards program, and one of the things that I really like about it is how Alaska has unique airline partners, including Icelandair.

Redemptions on Icelandair follow the standard Atmos Rewards 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 points in economy, or 10,000 points in premium economy
• An itinerary of 1,501-3,500 miles would start at 22,500 points one-way, or 30,000 points in premium economy
• An itinerary of 3,501-5,000 miles would start at 27,500 points one-way, or 35,000 points in premium economy

In theory that all sounds like it could be a decent deal, especially given that free stopovers are allowed on Atmos Rewards 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 Atmos Rewards 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
• Alaska Atmos Rewards doesn’t have access to Saga Class (premium economy) awards, but rather only has access to economy award availability; maybe that’ll change again at some point, but that’s the current reality
• 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 points rather than 22,500 points

Redeeming JetBlue TrueBlue points on Icelandair

The JetBlue TrueBlue program lets members redeem points for travel on Icelandair. The good news is that with JetBlue points, you can redeem for travel in both cabins on Icelandair, including Saga Class.

There’s not an award chart when redeeming JetBlue points for travel on Icelandair, and pricing seems to be a combination of zone and distance based, with pricing being cumulative.

For example, on random dates I pulled up, you can fly from New York to Keflavik for 17,000 points in economy, or 69,900 points in Saga Class.

Meanwhile you could fly from Boston to Copenhagen via Keflavik for 31,700 points in economy, or 108,900 points in Saga Class.

While it’s nice that you can redeem for Icelandair Saga Class, unfortunately don’t get too excited about the redemption values. Since pricing for the two segments is essentially cumulative, this means you can have a stopover in Iceland without redeeming a lot more points.

Finding attractive fares, offsetting them with points

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 limited good options on Icelandair, I do think it’s worth bringing up, as Icelandair’s cash fares are often quite reasonable.

The way I view it, when you’re booking an itinerary on Icelandair, you have three different options to consider, given how the carrier structures its fares:

• You can book roundtrip, nonstop itineraries between the United States and Iceland
• You can book roundtrip itineraries between the United States and another point in Europe, with a “free” stopover in Iceland
• You can book a one-way itinerary between the United States and another point in Europe (or vice versa), with a “free” stopover in Iceland

Let me explain why each of these options could be attractive. If you were flying nonstop between the United States and Iceland in Saga Class, you’ll find that roundtrip fares are typically around $2,000.

Now, sometimes Icelandair has great fare sales, where you might even find roundtrip Saga Class fares of under $1,000, which is tough to beat (however, this is the exception rather than the norm).

While it varies based on the exact itinerary, you’ll typically find that pricing between the United States and Europe with a stopover in Iceland is around the same cost as typically flying nonstop between the United States and Iceland. So you have to decide if there’s somewhere else in Europe you’d like to go as well.

With Icelandair Saga Class being more like premium economy than business class, some people may prefer to avoid this product on an overnight flight, and only fly Icelandair on a daytime flight (since most flights from the United States to Iceland are redeyes). The good news is that Icelandair has attractive one-way fares, and even allows stopovers on those tickets.

So from a comfort and value perspective, I think the best “play” could be to find a good fare from some other point in Europe to the United States on Icelandair, with a stopover in Iceland. Fares are generally best out of Northern Europe. That way you could fly over to Europe comfortably on another airline (like in a flat bed business class), and return on Icelandair.

So there are lots of good options for revenue fares on Icelandair, and then those fares can potentially be offset with credit card points.

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 travel on the airline, it can be tough to get great value.

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 Atmos Rewards doesn’t have access to premium cabin awards on Icelandair. JetBlue TrueBlue is the only program with access to premium cabin awards, though they don’t exactly represent a great value.

The good news is that Icelandair often has attractive cash fares, and then you can use credit card points to offset the cost of those tickets. In most situations, I’d say that’s the best way to book Icelandair tickets.

What I appreciate about Icelandair’s revenue fares is that they’re attractive if booking one-way or roundtrip, and regardless of the type of ticket you book, you can have a stopover in Iceland. For those who want comfort without paying a fortunate, I think the best option is generally to book a one-way ticket from some other point in Europe to the United States, with a stopover in Iceland.

What’s your take on the best way to redeem points on Icelandair? Any good options I’m missing?