Southwest Airlines announces new partnership with Icelandair

But Southwest isn’t stopping there. They’re planning to add at least one more international partner next year. It’s a smart move that’ll help them compete with the big legacy carriers without the massive investment of launching their own long-haul routes. This could mean more options for using your Rapid Rewards points and potentially accessing a wider range of destinations.

Southwest’s being coy with the details, but they’re hinting at some changes to Rapid Rewards, too. Think international flight redemptions and better perks for A-List and A-List Preferred members. I’m curious to see how this plays out. Will we see better redemption rates for international flights? More ways to earn tier qualifying points? The possibilities are intriguing.

Why Icelandair makes perfect sense for Southwest

Icelandair, much like Copa Airlines, operates a hub-and-spoke network between the U.S. and Europe. With 34 destinations in Europe they’ve pretty much got the continent covered with planes that are similar to those you’d expect doing flights within the U.S., with a business class that more resembles a domestic first class seat than a lie-flat one. For me, that’s not worth the upcharge. 

I’m not someone who’s worried about a lie-flat seat for every single flight over the pond. The flight time from BWI to Reykjavik (KEF) is about six hours, almost the same as a transcon or a recent flight I took from D.C. to Cancun. That’s not an amount of time that will kill me to be in a regular seat, especially if the price is right. 

And the price is what excites me most. Icelandair’s BWI-KEF flights often go under $500 round-trip in economy, and if Southwest keeps the same redemption rate of around 1.4 cents, that means these flights could go for around 35,000 Rapid Rewards round-trip in…