The downside to JFC is that I've always got time for short, smartass comments, but if it takes a lot of time to actually produce more thought-out posts and, if I do, I always have the intention of coming back to engage in the discussion, but never end up finding the time. Started this thread nearly 3 months ago and now barely getting back to it. A few things I had wanted to respond to at the time but wasn't able to.
Anyhow, we just got back from Iceland and England. Found some cheap tickets to London through Icelandair. I think tickets typically hover around $800-$1,000 from SLC to London and can drop into like $700 if you find some good ones. Found ones that were like $600 out of Denver. We ended up using our rapid rewards miles to fly SLC-DEN (up until then that credit card had been absolutely worthless). So Icelandair must be subsidized by their government, because they give you the option of adding a 1-7 day layover at no cost. So while our destination that we got good prices on was for London, we ended up doing 3 days in Iceland. We saw quite a bit there, including the northern lights, which was both my wife and I's first time experiencing that, which was actually quite crazy. We got very little sleep. Saw some crazy waterfalls. It was cold, but not as cold as you would think when you think of Iceland. We then flew to London and spent 2 days out in the Cotswolds and went into Wales. Then spent the last 2 nights in London. Took all the kids so it was pretty crazy navigating London with 5 kids 14 and under. Driving on the opposite side of the road was interesting. I think the kids liked London the most. I feel like we saw most of what we would want to see there, but I think having an additional day would have been helpful because we were cut a little short on time. We only road the subway once. We took the Thames clipper in and out, which was pretty convenient as the pier was a couple minute walk from our flat.
Anyhow, we just got back from Iceland and England. Found some cheap tickets to London through Icelandair. I think tickets typically hover around $800-$1,000 from SLC to London and can drop into like $700 if you find some good ones. Found ones that were like $600 out of Denver. We ended up using our rapid rewards miles to fly SLC-DEN (up until then that credit card had been absolutely worthless). So Icelandair must be subsidized by their government, because they give you the option of adding a 1-7 day layover at no cost. So while our destination that we got good prices on was for London, we ended up doing 3 days in Iceland. We saw quite a bit there, including the northern lights, which was both my wife and I's first time experiencing that, which was actually quite crazy. We got very little sleep. Saw some crazy waterfalls. It was cold, but not as cold as you would think when you think of Iceland. We then flew to London and spent 2 days out in the Cotswolds and went into Wales. Then spent the last 2 nights in London. Took all the kids so it was pretty crazy navigating London with 5 kids 14 and under. Driving on the opposite side of the road was interesting. I think the kids liked London the most. I feel like we saw most of what we would want to see there, but I think having an additional day would have been helpful because we were cut a little short on time. We only road the subway once. We took the Thames clipper in and out, which was pretty convenient as the pier was a couple minute walk from our flat.