The Icelandair by Mistake post is part of the Whose Land? Iceland Trip Report which covers the following cities:
Cheap WOW air flights, free hotels at the 1919 and Saga Hotel, allow me to travel to places that I can’t afford or otherwise would not pay to go. Points travel is a beautiful thing that I have not taken for granted. I’m well aware of the devaluations, the 5/24 rules that could end the points lifestyle virtually overnight.
If that happens, we will have to face the horrible reality of paying for flights. Sure there deals to be had but what happens if a certain person, let’s call him TPOL, needs a last-minute flight from KEF-JFK because that imbecile inexplicably booked his flight from OSL-JFK and didn’t realize it until he arrived at KEF airport.
This was besides my visa issue the dumbest thing I have ever done while traveling. The next may be publicizing my mistake which most certainly undermines my credibility as a travel expert. Still, if this saves one person from making the same mistake then writing this post was worth it.
Having said that, I have no idea how I committed such an egregious mistake. It all started when I was booking the return from Iceland to New York but couldn’t find any good deals on WOW. I found that it was cheaper to go to Copenhagen and then to Oslo for a few days then fly back to the US from there. That way I could add two more countries to my passport.
A few days later, I found a cheap flight from what I thought was KEF to JFK on Norwegian using Google Flights. I went to book it and used Google Translate to make the reservation. The next day I received the confirmation email and that was that. When I was in Iceland, I even checked my departure time on the reservation and confirmed that it was 3PM. When I arrived at the airport, I couldn’t find any Norwegian flights. I pulled up the email again and that’s when I found out that the flight was departing from Oslo!
$628 later I booked a flight on Icelandair to JFK. I couldn’t use Alaska Airlines points because a)I didn’t have enough and b)I’d never waste those precious points. Delta had a flight the next day but that was 60k + $200 which was not worth it. The final option was to use Skyscanner for any flight out of KEF. Bristol, England was the only one that popped up. In no mood to figure out where Bristol was or how I would get home from there, I accepted my disgraceful defeat.
On a not so shitty note, the Icelandair flight wasn’t that bad.
Look, I have pics!
how about iceland – ireland – boston and train to nyc? obviously what’s done its done and i’d hate to be in the same position!
there were no cheap flights out of iceland which was the problem. and because i had been so frugal with my carry-ons I didn’t have the power of my laptop to do the proper reconnaissance to find something decent.
Norwegian doesn’t fly from Iceland to the States. Why would you think you had a ticket for that flight?
Am I supposed to respond to ‘anonymous’? Because I’m stupid obviously