Background:
I booked a trip on Icelandair to visit London and I added a 3 day stopover in Iceland for free! I decided to fly SFO-KEF-LHR, stay 4 nights then do LHR-KEF, stay 3 nights in Iceland, then head back from KEF-SFO. All for $320! A great deal if you ask me!
What’s nice is that even in the “Economy Light” lowest fare, you still get to pick your seat for free! And of course, on this fare you don’t get checked baggage but you do get a free carry on! I call it “Basic Economy Plus”
Even better for me was when I booked this flight, Icelandair had just gotten rid of their “Economy Comfort” and somehow the old “Economy Comfort” seats (rows 6-8 on the 767) were popping up as free. So of course, I snagged them! (thankfully they honored the seats!)
I did have an issue at check-in online, the website wanted me to now pay for it, so I called customer support and the agent was very nice and said “We will honor your free seat as when you booked, we didn’t charge for those seats at the time, but in the future we charge them as More Legroom seats. Just check in at the airport and you won’t have a problem.”
Nowdays, it’s rebranded as “More Legroom” seats and the website says its $65 for US-Iceland Flights.
Flight Details:
Icelandair Flight 862 and 863
San Francisco (SFO) to Reykjavik (KEF) and Reykjavik (KEF) to San Francisco (SFO)
Seat: 7C- Aisle- More Legroom
Aircraft: Boeing 767
Keflavík International Airport (KEF):
Lemme just say that where the international flights depart on Icelandair has the SMALLEST TERMINAL. Lines are outrageous, and it’s a mess because Icelandair makes all the flights back to the US leave at similar times to minimize the connections so passengers will book them.
The Flight:
For both flights, when boarding the plane, I was happy to have been given a nice bottle of Icelandic Glacial Natural Spring Water. Impressed! Pillows and blankets were provided as well.
For the More Legroom seats they advertise a 34″ pitch, while normal economy seats are at 32″. Not a huge difference, but I noticed the extra legroom. Compared to many other airlines’ extra legroom seats it was actually not a huge step up so I could see why they discontinued their “Economy Comfort” product.
Seatback IFE was pretty good, with 50 titles to choose from including many new releases. A bit limited, but still solid for a 8/9 hour flight. Plus, they have USB charging! Wifi was also available on my flight and it was only 9.7 Euros for the flight which is quite a good deal for 8+ hours! I checked now, as my flight was over 6 months ago and it has been raised to 12 Euros for the flight, which is still a decent deal to me. (Not sure how fast the wifi is though…)
There are no free meals on Icelandair, so prepare for that! They do offer drink services though (and give the whole can 🙂
The major issue of the flight was the fact that the seats were really uncomfortable! Only about 4 hours in, my back + tailbone already started hurting! Good thing it was a short flight to Iceland; I wouldn’t be able to stand a 10 hour + flight nonstop to Europe on an Icelandair plane.
Additionally, the pilots were pretty bad at landing and hit the runway HARD. I’ve never had such bad landings! On both flights. It was funny because at the Hilton in Iceland that I stayed at, there was a pilots convention/training seminar and in the Executive Lounge all the training pilots were trash talking (really loudly) about how bad the Icelandair pilots are at landing.
The Verdict:
For a $320 flight from San Francisco to London with a free stopover in Iceland as well as free seat selection, it was an amazing deal! Would I fly Icelandair again despite the uncomfortable seats? Of course I’d give them another try. But if Icelandair is the same price as other carriers, I would most likely opt to fly a different airline.
Happy travels,
Ty
LONDON + ICELAND ADVENTURE:
Stay tuned to see the rest of my London + Iceland Adventure posts!
AIRLINES:
- Alaska Didn’t Add Me to The Upgrade List, How Should you Avoid It!
- Alaska A321 Review LAX-SFO
- Icelandair Boeing 767 Extra Legroom SFO-KEF
- Icelandair Boeing 767 Extra Legroom KEF-LHR
- Review: Alaska E175 First Class SJC-LAX
AIRPORT LOUNGES:
- Alaska Lounge @ LAX
- Air France/KLM Lounge @ SFO
- Plaza Premium Arrivals Lounge LHR
- Plaza Premium Lounge London Heathrow Terminal 2
- The Club at SJC
