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European discount carrier WOW Air currently has round trip fares from San Francisco or Los Angeles to Iceland from $259 round trip. To put in perspective how good that is, here are the Google Flights options from Los Angeles to Reykjavik from April 26th to May 4th:
Remember that WOW Air is a discount carrier, so they will tack on additional fees for everything from checked bags to selecting your seat. They even charge for a carry-on bag, and it isn’t cheap:
However, these fees can be a great use of the travel credits on cards like the Chase Ritz-Carlton, the Citi Prestige, or the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Of course, if using the travel credit from the Sapphire Reserve or Prestige, you could cover (or just about cover) the entire cost of the ticket! The Chase Ritz-Calrton credit must be used on incidental fees — but fees like checked bags and seat selection fit that criteria easily. Information on all of these cards can be found on our Best Offers page.
In 2015, I flew WOW and used travel credit from my Ritz-Calrton Visa card to cover seat selection and checked baggage fees. I chose XXL seating on a flight from Boston to London and found it to be more spacious than the average domestic first class seat in the US. This picture shows XXL seating behind the flight attendants — the exit row has quite a bit of space. However, note that WOW flies a larger A330 from Los Angeles:
These prices are currently available in April and May. Secret Flying reports that cheaper prices are available through Momondo, but I have not found anything better than the $260 publicly available through the WOW Air site. WOW Air allows you to search with flexible dates to see pricing for a number of different departures at once. Alternatively, check out Greg’s excellent overview of using Google Flights for tips on using Google to find the best dates and prices as the same techniques can be used whether searching for business class fares or sales like this one.
H/T: Secret Flying
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“In 2015, I flew WOW and used travel credit from my Ritz-Calrton Visa card to cover seat selection and checked baggage fees.”
Did you purchase your seat and then go back later to purchase the incidentals? If not, and you purchased all at once, are the charges separated out so that you could get them reimbursed?
Thinking about doing the same with the CNB Crystal Visa, but unsure how it will work in practice.
Great question — but before I answer it, let me save you some disappointment: The terms of the CNB Crystal Visa travel credit state that the charge must be made with US Domestic Carriers in order to be reimbursed. Everything I’ve read indicates that this is enforced, so I don’t believe you can get WOW’s fees reimbursed with the Crystal Visa.
The answer to your question is that I added the bags and seat selection at time of booking my ticket, so it was all 1 charge to my Ritz-Carlton Visa. A couple days later, after the charge had posted, I called in and explained that most of the WOW charge was fees and I wanted to use my incidental credit. I was asked how much the total fees were. I told the agent how much and he said no problem and I was given the credit. The entire call was less than 5 minutes.
Better disappointment now than pulling my hair out later.
Thanks!
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