As an ultra-low cost carrier, WOW Air is known for both their crazy low fares but numerous fees. The airline has recently had some incredible fare sales. But before you decide to snag one of these deals, make sure you understand the additional charges that may fly along with it.
WOW Air previously permitted each passenger one carry-on as part of their airfare with maximum dimensions of 17x13x10 inches and up to 22 lbs. You could purchase a carry-on “upgrade” that would allow you to instead bring a bag of 28x18x10 inches and 26 lbs. For a fairly substantial fee, of course. Each person was also allowed a small personal item that would fit under the seat in front of them, measuring 16x8x8 inches. Either way, you could bring one carry-on and one personal item.
In what way did WOW air change their carry-on fees and policies?
The main change made by the Iceland-based budget carrier is this: you are now only allowed to bring one bag on board for free as a personal item. However, this personal item can now be the size of the smaller size carry-on from the previous policy, namely 17x13x10 inches instead of 16x8x8 inches. A “normal” size carry on bag of 22x18x10 inches can now simply be purchased. There is no more carry-on “upgrade”. To recap, that means one personal item of 17x13x10 inches and no weight limit for free, and one carry-on bag of 22x18x10 inches of no weight limit for purchase. From WOW’s site:
The policy can be found here, and the list of applicable fees here. Currently, a carry-on bag costs $40.99 between the U.S. East Coast and Iceland and $50.99 between the U.S. West Coast and Iceland when purchased online.
The changes could be either positive or negative, depending on your travel habits. The new policy no longer gives you both a personal item and a carry-on for free, which is a bummer. However, the size of the personal item has been increased to the size of the previous small carry-on, and the weight limit has been eliminated entirely. This means if you can fit everything in a bag of 17x13x10 inches, you pay no extra fees. Additionally, the weight limit on the larger carry-on item has been eliminated as well, which is a plus.
Overall, I find WOW’s new policy easier to understand.
That being said, it’s always rough when a carrier makes a policy or fee change and doesn’t disseminate it. Considering there isn’t any information on the fee change anywhere on WOW’s website, I hope the company at least makes an announcement that fees have changed, preferably spelling out the details (since their “optional fees and charges” can be difficult to navigate).
Featured image courtesy of Milan Nykodym under CC 2.0 license.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
They’re also adding 20 seats to their A321s, removing most of the XL and XXL seats, and giving seat pitch similar to Spirit.
I believe there is still a weight limit of 10kg. It says so in my travel confirmation with Wow.
When did you book? These changes are pretty recent. Tickets booked before the change are subject to the old rules, I believe.
Every airline seems to have different dimensions available and if you are simply always going cheapest fare you’ll probably be paying a lot for a bunch of bags to see which ones suit the airline. Sounds like a loser to me.
If you generally travel with a decent amount of luggage, I agree. But if you can travel really light, using a bag the size of WOW’s new “personal item” will probably make flying a budget carrier well worth it.
I just don’t know how you’d accomplish such a feat flying to Iceland in the winter…