What I Thought About My First Time Flying With Norwegian Airlines

I have to be honest with you, I was a little nervous about flying on Norwegian Air on my recent flight from JFK to London. I had never flown on the airline before and since it is a discount airline, I wanted to make sure I followed all of their rules so I didn't end up paying with my wallet. 

I booked a "lowfare plus" ticket online so I could choose my seat because I was flying with my 13-year-old and we wanted to sit together. If you don't upgrade, the airline will assign you a seat at check-in. But even with the upgrade, the ticket cost me $125 per person. You can't beat that!

Be sure to join Norwegian's Loyalty program, you will earn a few miles and you can apply them to any future flight. The upgrade also came with meals onboard and we got to choose if we wanted regular, vegetarian or vegan.  

My small carryon bag got approved! 

          After seat selection, the next item discount airlines try to upcharge you for is luggage. Norwegian allows all passengers one small carry on and one personal item. If you upgrade to lowfare plus, you get a checked bag for FREE. If you typically check a bag, I highly recommend this upgrade when you book your ticket. Don't try to pay at check-in! It gets really expensive. We saw people at check-in paying hundreds of dollars for their suitcases. 

       You get a small carry on for FREE, BUT the airline takes this very seriously. They actually do it by weight and not size at check-in. Your bag has to weigh less than 10 kg. The service rep told me if it's slightly over, she will pass it through anyway. But when my bag weighed 11.2 kg, she said no way and asked me to pay $100, ouch. 

And here's the kicker, it's not just your carryon bag, they put your personal item on the scale too. Needless to say, once she did that I was pretty far over 10kg.

           The rep was helpful and suggested I take things out of my suitcase like my shoes and toiletries to bring the weight down. 

Now I'm standing at the counter with my shoes, laptop and toiletries in my arms, but we did it and she approved my bags without charging me. 

Once we left the counter, of course, I stuffed all of the items back in the suitcase. Not sure what this process proved, but consider yourself warned. 

On the return flight from London Gatwick, they actually checked bags again at the secondary security. This time they had a bin and seemed concerned about the size of the bag. 

Boarding the airplane was another experience. Each boarding pass has a letter on it assigning you to a group. However, there is no signage about where to line up like Southwest Airlines and the reps just call out the groups and a mass of people crowd toward the door. 

Everyone has an assigned seat, but I think people were concerned about overhead bin space. 

It took a long time to get everyone on the plane.

Once we were onboard, the plane was quite nice. It was a Dreamliner so my teen had a great time dimming the windows. I thought there could have been more legroom, but I flew Southwest this past weekend and I think it was about the same. The flight crew was super nice and attentive. I didn't eat the meals because we visited the Priority Pass Lounge. I'll be writing a blog post about this perk that you will need to check out. The entertainment system offered a decent movie selection too. 

One thing that surprised me in the week leading up to the flight, I received several emails like this one offering me a chance to bid on upgrades. Apparently several airlines including Aer Lingus offer auctions for upgrades. Some passengers report scoring an upgrade for the minimum bid, but it seems like many are denied. It all depends on how many empty seats are on the plane. 

Would I fly Norwegian Air again? Definitely. It cost me $350 round trip JFK-London-LAX. Yep, I would say that's worth it. That's how we do it at almost FREE family travel. 

How I Flew To London r/t For Just $350

My daughter and I in front of Buckingham Palace

     When my daughter finished the entire series of Harry Potter, six months faster than I anticipated, I started thinking about a quick fall trip across the pond.
     And guess what? Best decision ever.
     October is what they call in the travel biz, low season or off-peak. That means great deals for you if you can adjust your schedule. Usually, I use points to travel, but this trip, I was able to find a flight for $125 from JFK to London Gatwick on Norwegian Airlines. I reviewed what it was like to fly on  Norwegian Airlines in this post. For that price, it's worth it just to pay cash. I purchased the flight with my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card since I was trying to reach the minimum spend on that one plus travel earns 3x points so it's a win-win. This is my new favorite card and you can check out the reasons why here. If you decide that the Reserve is too steep, then check out the Preferred and use my link. 

London offers so many awesome things to do

      On the return, I looked at flying back to JFK, but found that flights all the way to Los Angeles cost the same price about $225. So why waste time and Southwest points to get from New York to the west coast.
      So for $350 per person, we got two round trip tickets to London. Since the Sapphire Reserve includes a $300 travel credit, we actually spent just less than $500 for the flights. Plus made a dent in the minimum spend and got 1,500 Chase Ultimate Reward points. I talk about how to use those points for incredible savings in this post.
      I'll talk about some great things to do with tweens in London in a future post, but the bottom line is if you can swing an off-peak trip to Europe, it will save you a ton of money and miles.
       If you decide to apply for the Sapphire Preferred, please use my referral link. It will help support this blog. 

Norwegian Airlines Cancels All Long Haul Flights

 

The Nordic budget carrier, Norwegian Airlines, announced today that they are canceling all long haul flights effective immediately. The airline has been struggling for years and the COVID crisis was the final straw. The company sent out emails this morning to all the rewards customers stating:

I've written articles in the past about this airline and specifically how I hopped a flight across the pond last October from New York to London for $150 with my daughter so we could visit The Making of Harry Potter.

It definitely had its strengths (low price) and drawbacks (baggage rules that were nuts). But it makes me sad to see it pull back and we can only hope that when travel returns, this airline expands again. 

If you had a flight reservation, check out this FAQ to get answers. and if you have Cashpoints or Rewards, those will not be affected. 

Another sad day in travel. 

United To Increase Checked Bag Fees In March

Paying for checked bags is one of the most annoying things about travel. I try to avoid it at all costs. Yep, I'm the one kneeling by the counter moving my shoes from one bag to another or on a recent Norwegian Airlines flight holding my toiletries in my arms. 

So get ready, starting March 2020 United Airlines is raising its checked bag fees. This comes on the heels of Jet Blue Airlines which increased its fees now making it the most expensive in the industry. 

The fine print from United's website says if you have a flight booked already then the airline will honor the old fees, but if you are looking to make a reservation now, you will be faced with an increased fee. We don't know what that fee will be yet, but experts are guessing it will increase by $5 per bag. 

Right now, the airline charges $30 for the first bag and $40 for the second. 

And with a basic economy ticket, you will pay even more if you pay at the gate. By the way, basic economy ticket holders cannot check-in on-line either because United wants to make sure you don't have any excess luggage. 

There are a couple of ways to get around paying fees at all. 

1. Don't check a bag! I only fly with a carry on and if needed I'll do laundry while on my trip. If we will be gone for a long time, I'll check one bag for the entire family. That bag will contain all our liquids like shampoo, conditioner, sunscreen etc. 

2. Get a co-branded credit card for the airline you fly the most. Most of the co-branded cards will give you at least one FREE checked bag. 

3. Pay for that checked bag with your Capital One Venture credit card. The charge will be coded as travel and you can erase it with points. Right now, Capital One Venture card is offering 50,000 bonus points for a $3,000 minimum spend. Use my link if you decide to apply. 

4. Pay for your bag online before you arrive at the airport. You get a better price. 

5. Fly Southwest, two checked bags are included FREE

That's how we do it at almostFREEfamilytravel.com 

Chase 1st Quarter 2025 5x Bonus Categories

 

Woohoo! Chase has announced the 5x bonus categories for the FREEDOM (not available to new customers) and FREEDOM FLEX credit cards for Q1 2025. 

The bonus categories rotate quarterly and offer 5x Chase points up to $1,500. It's an easy way to accelerate your earning power. I max out these bonus offers on both of my FREEDOM credit cards every quarter. 

And then transfer the points to my Chase Sapphire Reserve for maximum value. 

Past categories have included Paypal, Amazon, Lowe's Walmart, pet services and more. 

For Q1 2025, the categories are:

• Self Care, Nail and Hair Salon and Spa 
• Grocery Stores - excluding Walmart and Target
• Fitness and Gyms 
• Norwegian Cruise Lines 

You need to activate your bonus by March 14th 2025. 

Besides the bonus categories, the Chase FREEDOM FLEX comes with a $200 bonus offer for a $500 minimum spend. This is a $0 annual fee credit card so it's a great everyday card to add to your wallet. 

How To Get 10X Points And FREE Global Entry

I love booking flights with miles, but sometimes, you don't have enough miles to book a certain flight or you can't transfer your miles to the airline you want to fly or there's no availability. 

So what do you do? The Capital One Venture card is the answer and now, the card offered some added perks. 
First, the new perks for those of you who already know about this card. Through 2020, book a hotel through hotels.com and earn 10x points on your Capital One Venture card. Wow! That's a quick way to rack up points. 

Another perk is FREE global entry. This is a $100 value. I'm not convinced that global entry saves any time, but if you fly a lot and run into security issues or long lines, then it may be helpful. 

The best value of the Capital One Venture card is that you can erase any travel purchases with points. What does this mean?

For example, you book a flight on Norwegian Airlines for $400 round trip from Newark to Rome. You purchase the flight with your Capital One Venture card. Once the purchase goes through, you can log into your Capital One Venture account and use points to erase the purchase. You have 120 days to erase the purchase. And with a bonus of 50,000 when you sign up for the card, you can erase about $600 worth of travel. Travel purchases are hotels, flights, train tickets and anything else coded for travel. 

I used my bonus to cover 5 one way flights from Houston to LAX. This was the last leg of our flights home from Panama. Unfortunately, my United points would only get us from Panama to Houston and not all the way back to LAX due to lack of availability. But I used the Capital One Venture bonus to finish the trip. 
The card has a $3,000 minimum spend in the first 3 months with $0 annual fee the first year, $95 after that. 

That's how we do it at almost FREE family travel!