Icelandair Stopover Buddy

As mentioned on a previous post, Icelandair offers a free stopover (up to seven nights) in Reykjavik on your way from the US to Europe. I was able to take advantage of this feature on my recent trip to Iceland + Paris. In addition to the free stopover, there was another cool feature called the Stopover Buddy – through this program, based on your interests, you would be assigned an Icelandair employee to show you around for a day. Free of charge!!

The program was only available for travel between February 2 to April 30, 2016 but it looks like it will be coming back in the fall:

“Now, our Buddies are preparing for the next season: autumn 2016. They will return full force with new adventures and outlooks, ready to greet Stopover passengers with the vivacity and positivity Icelandair employees are known for!”

At first I thought that it would be a bit weird meeting a random person and spending a day in their company. But then I looked at it from a different perspective – it’s similar to booking a tour, the difference is that it won’t cost anything. The process of booking the buddy was pretty straightforward – fill out the form online where you provide your flight info, preferred date for your buddy and the type of activities you are interested in:

• Adventure  – join an Adventure Buddy for a custom tour like no other. The only requirement is a decent amount of curiosity and courage.
• Culture – ask a Culture Buddy to guide you through the national mind-set while trying out your usual activities in a very different setting.
• Food – embrace your inner food critic on a culinary expedition with a Food Buddy and leave full of good memories and good food!
• Health – expand your horizons with a Health Buddy and see what we do on this island of extremes when it comes to staying active, healthy and energetic.
• Lifestyle – ask a Lifestyle Buddy to join you on all kinds of quests, ranging from exploring volcanos and climbing mountains to discovering just how beneficial solving the world’s problems in a hot tub can be.
• Nature – if you love the great outdoors, waterfalls, mossy lava fields, lakes, glaciers and more, you should absolutely go on an Iceland expedition with a Nature Buddy.

As I understand, only one person (whoever is requesting the stopover buddy) needs to be booked on the Icelandair flight from the USA to Europe via Iceland to take advantage of this program and that person can bring up to four people with him/her.

Since my flight to Reykjavik was arriving early in the morning, I decided to visit the Blue Lagoon on the way to the hotel and spend the rest of the day with my new buddy exploring the city. I was planning on booking some tours to see the countryside in Iceland anyways, so the Culture Buddy seemed like the best option. I submitted my request and a couple of days later received an email confirming the buddy was available for the requested day and would get in touch with me soon. A few days after that I received an email from the actual “buddy” – Elisabet with her short bio (age, hobbies, job specifics at Icelandair, etc.) and the proposed itinerary for the day.

I exchanged a couple of emails (and phone numbers just in case) with Elisabet and we adjusted our meeting time by two hours later than originally planned. Fast forward to the actual meeting day – around an hour before the meeting time I texted her to confirm the time/place and asked what would be the best way to get to the meeting point from the hotel. She confirmed the time and offered to pick me up at the hotel (since she was going to drive her car to the meeting point anyways). Once Elisabet picked me up, she suggested we drive downtown first for the bird eye views from the top of Hallgrímskirkja.

Views from Hallgrímskirkja

Just a side note – the wind is brutal in Reykjavik. Especially if you are standing 244 feet high. So, a cup of hot coffee seemed like a logical step after the church. If at the beginning I was a bit worried about spending half a day with a complete stranger, by now I was glad I booked the “buddy” – Elisabet turned out to be a very easy going person with a great passion/knowledge about her country. We spent over an hour walking around downtown while talking about random stuff: the best places to eat in Reykjavik, why milk tastes better in Iceland than anywhere else in the world, comparing Icelandair Saga Club (that’s what she was doing at Icelandair) to different mile programs, why the beer industry is so young in Iceland, the banking crisis in Iceland, etc….. As I found out later, she also had a chance to live abroad (USA and Scandinavia) before settling in Reykjavik, so it was interesting to hear her opinion about life in the States.

After the walk she drove around to show me Bjork’s house, the Viking Ship sculpture and the lighthouse in the nearby town. The last stop was the Harpa concert hall – a really stunning glass building. The original plan was to see a show there but by the time we got there all shows were over. Well, I wasn’t going to complain about it –  the jet lag was starting to kick in and I was having a hard time staying awake. So, I decided to call it a night. Elisabet offered to give me a ride back to my hotel and even wrote down her favorite restaurants for me to check out on the other days.

Viking Ship Sculpture

Bottom Line

I think Icelandair has smart and creative people working in their marketing department who are open to trying new ideas. If you get a chance, it’s definitely worth trying out the “buddy” feature – not only does it not cost anything, but you get a free guide for a day, as well as a chance to meet local people and learn about their life and culture.