$99 WOW Air Flights to Iceland Are Back: Here’s What You Need to Know

WOW Air’s $99 fares to Reykjavik Keflavík International Airport (KEF) may sound too good to be true, but for bargain hunters with flexible travel dates and a sense of urgency, it isn’t especially difficult to find and book flights to The Land of Fire and Ice from major airports like John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) or even smaller markets such as St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL), Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) and Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT). In some cases, even better deals are available between KEF and European destinations, including fares from Brussels Airport (BRU) starting at a little more than $50 each way.

Frugal flyers will need to possess extraordinary self control, however, if they intend to avoid giving the airline more of their hard earned cash. Those $99 fares have some fairly substantial (and in many cases expensive) restrictions.

Passengers needing to check luggage or bring carry-on bags with them will be hit with a hefty extra fee. According to the airline, the cost of that carry-on bag will vary depending on the date, departure time and destination of individual flights. In practice, baggage fees alone can easily cost flyers more than double the price of the original base fare. Summertime or not, traveling to a country adjacent to the Arctic Circle will likely require more than one change of clothes and that alone will require more than the “one personal item” luggage allowance included with the $99 booking.

Travel companions who wish to sit together will pay a fee for selecting seats together – otherwise seats are “assigned randomly at boarding.” Flyers who would like something to eat on the journey to Iceland which can last well over 8 hours in the air from SFO, will have to purchase meals onboard (or pay an extra carry-on bag charge for their picnic basket).

In the past, there have also been a few intangible costs associated with flying the notoriously unreliable Icelandic budget airline. WOW has made headlines in recent months for a string of incidents in which the airline left passengers stranded for hours or days. In some cases, the airline has been accused of failing to get passengers to their destinations at all and then outright refusing to return passengers’ money. CEO Skuli Mogensen, however, has pledged that the airline will “do better” in the future.

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