Cheap transatlantic airfares

For those of you looking for cheap transatlantic airfares, and don't mind some weird routings, Icelandic WOW air are currently offering oneway flights for €139 (under $160) from Washington DC or Boston to various places like London or Dublin (and possibly others). Flights stop off briefly in Reykjavik. The cheap fares are usually for travel on Wednesdays or Thursdays.

Thought it might be of interest to some people :)

Thanks for the heads up. Iceland Air also allows you to stay a night or two in Iceland with no increase in fare

Thanks for the heads up. Iceland Air also allows you to stay a night or two in Iceland with no increase in fare

We did this on one of our TA's from Amsterdam. Stayed a few nights in Reykjavik and home to Indiana.

Would do that again.

Diane

Iceland is one of the most fascinating countries I have ever visited. We will be flying Icelandair again when we next go to Europe.

For those posting, OP is not talking about Iceland Air. They are discussing WOW air; not the same. WOW is a LCC.

https://wowair.us

Condor also has some great deals and does not show on a regular search

For those posting, OP is not talking about Iceland Air. They are discussing WOW air; not the same. WOW is a LCC.

 

https://wowair.us

Thanks -wondered what the WOW bit was about!

Was not aware of either of these airlines --does anyone have any experience with them?

Condor was part of Lufthansa until a couple months ago. New aircraft and German pilots. They sold to Cook travel after the disaster in the Alps. Has been in business some years. Suggest you check out their website.

Condor was part of Lufthansa until a couple months ago. New aircraft and German pilots. They sold to Cook travel after the disaster in the Alps. Has been in business some years. Suggest you check out their website.

No, Thomas Cook started acquiring Condor in 2000. The suicide/murder flight in the Alps was Germanwings Fight 9525. Not the same airline. Germanwings is a subsidiary of Lufthansa.

Advise you to be careful on Condor tickets People on our roll call had their tickets for July 1,2016 cancelled and rebooked to July 3. That does not work for July 2 cruise. BWI to AMS. Had a hard time getting money returned from 3 rd party who sold the ticket. This is the difference between a ticket and a reservation!

And here I am almost ready to pull the trigger on a RT from CHS to BCN for $2900 on AA. (The thought of 4000 miles in coach with my knees in my chest is not at all appealing. :eek: )

Advise you to be careful on Condor tickets People on our roll call had their tickets for July 1,2016 cancelled and rebooked to July 3. That does not work for July 2 cruise. BWI to AMS. Had a hard time getting money returned from 3 rd party who sold the ticket. This is the difference between a ticket and a reservation!

No, it's the difference between booking directly with the airline versus booking through a third party.

I cannot remember the last time we did a normal return air flight to Europe. Some have been open jaw, most others one way either through award points or one way tickets.

We use third party consolidator tickets only occasionally where the airline in question has multiple flights and when we have no pressing schedule requirements. Our preference is to book with the carrier and to understand/compare the fare codes sothat we know what we are buying. Fare codes vary considerably between flights/airlines and booking engines. If we cannot see the fare code we usually pass on the ticket.

Over the oast few years we have not seen any benefit in booking early. We have always been able to find reasonable Europe fares 45 days out. But, we are very flexible either regard to gateway city coming home and destination city going. We have discovered done wonderful areas that we might not otherwise have visited thanks to going with the flow and cherry picking a flight.

We would not consider Icelandair to be a wierd flight. We would view it as a very good one way ticket with a free stopover in a country that we might not otherwise visit. Same with an Aer Lingus or dome others that have good offers.

And here I am almost ready to pull the trigger on a RT from CHS to BCN for $2900 on AA. (The thought of 4000 miles in coach with my knees in my chest is not at all appealing. :eek: )

If New York to either London or Paris would suit you, take a look at lacompagnie.com Dedicated business class only flights with proper legroom.

If New York to either London or Paris would suit you, take a look at lacompagnie.com Dedicated business class only flights with proper legroom.

Just remember that La Compagnie flies into London Luton, which primarily serves low cost and holiday charter airlines. If you want to connect to anywhere else in Europe you will either have to join the hoi polloi and fly loco, or transfer to Heathrow or Gatwick. Luton itself is a pretty dismal airport, although I assume La Compaigne will have a dedicated check-in and longe area.

Just remember that La Compagnie flies into London Luton, which primarily serves low cost and holiday charter airlines. If you want to connect to anywhere else in Europe you will either have to join the hoi polloi and fly loco, or transfer to Heathrow or Gatwick. Luton itself is a pretty dismal airport, although I assume La Compaigne will have a dedicated check-in and longe area.

They also have only two planes, which may be something to keep in mind.

Review:

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2014/07/26/la-compagnie-business-class-paris-newark-review/

They also have only two planes, which may be something to keep in mind.

 

Review:

 

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2014/07/26/la-compagnie-business-class-paris-newark-review/

Exactly - all the companies that have tried to operate a business only service across the Atlantic have failed, mainly due to lack of regular, reliable flights. The only company to make a success of such a service, is BA, flying a daily business only service between LCY and JFK. On the LCY - JFK routing there is a stop in Shannon to allow for re-fuelling, and also to allow pax to pass through US immigration, saving time on arrival at JFK.

If New York to either London or Paris would suit you, take a look at lacompagnie.com Dedicated business class only flights with proper legroom.

Apart from the fact their idea of business class is from the late 1990s they seem to be an utter shower of an operation.

If New York to either London or Paris would suit you, take a look at lacompagnie.com Dedicated business class only flights with proper legroom.

I'm actually doing only 1 connection each way. (I avoid the NYC area whenever possible. A seagull poops on the runway and it backs up for hours.). Doing CHS-PHL-BCN over and BCN-CLT-CHS back (have no idea why they don't do a RT from CLT-BCN, but whatever. The important part is lie flat seats both ways across the pond :D )

I'm actually doing only 1 connection each way. (I avoid the NYC area whenever possible. A seagull poops on the runway and it backs up for hours.). Doing CHS-PHL-BCN over and BCN-CLT-CHS back (have no idea why they don't do a RT from CLT-BCN, but whatever. The important part is lie flat seats both ways across the pond :D )

That's why I do transatlantics. Business class lie flat on the way over, then an entire lie flat/sideways/starfish cabin on the way back :)

Exactly - all the companies that have tried to operate a business only service across the Atlantic have failed, mainly due to lack of regular, reliable flights. The only company to make a success of such a service, is BA, flying a daily business only service between LCY and JFK. On the LCY - JFK routing there is a stop in Shannon to allow for re-fuelling, and also to allow pax to pass through US immigration, saving time on arrival at JFK.

The first is the fact that when the service works, it is so good for the primary high-yield market at which it is aimed, namely the financial services people working in Canary Wharf who can leave their desks less than 60 minutes before the scheduled departure time of the flight to JFK and still be at the gate for boarding with plenty of time in hand. So its most valuable customers support the route even though sometimes a particular journey will go wrong.

The second is that it has enormous backup capacity in the form of its Heathrow-JFK (and Newark) flights, so that if an LCY flight goes pear-shaped, passengers will be thrown into taxis at LCY and put onto the next JFK flight. For the passengers concerned, this means that even if they miss out on advantage number one, they are effectively no worse off than if the LCY service didn't exist at all.

The airlines that have tried standalone London-JFK business class only services have not had these advantages, and have predictably failed. Although in at least one, if not two, cases, the demise of the company has been ably assisted by one of the most notorious anti-competitive vultures in the sky.