WYDWJTADBDDBHWVI? (That’s short for “Would you do what Jordan thought about doing but didn’t do because his wife vetoed it?)

Travel priority one right now is going back to the Faroe Islands. I’ve been to some amazing places, but I’ve never in my life felt the same mixture of serenity and boundless excitement that I felt there. Justine feels the same way, so we’re planning our next trip. As established in the “About Me” section that I’m sure you’ve read by now, I can’t exactly pick up and travel for a week or two at a time whenever I want, but there are general windows in which I can travel, and September of 2017 is one of them. (I know I plan insanely far in advance, but it’s kind of the only way I can take trips like that at all.)

So, September of 2017 – what does availability look like? The problem with the Faroes is that there is only one routing that can get me there with one stop: SFO-CPH-FAE. And only one alliance-partnered airline operates that route: SAS. (Norwegian operates OAK-CPH, but they’re not part of an alliance, so I can’t book them with points.) A new development is that SAS is now serving CPH-FAE (not just codesharing with Atlantic). This is pretty big news for me, since SAS’s codeshare with Atlantic didn’t translate into Aeroplan and United recognizing FAE as a Star Alliance destination, so it was necessary to purchase CPH-FAE separately on my last trip. Now that SAS operates the flight with their own planes, United and Aeroplan both show SFO-FAE as a legitimate routing for the normal USA-Europe price.

Problem is, SAS’s availability isn’t great. It’s not Air New Zealand-level bad, as evidenced by the fact that I’m flying CPH-SFO this June when I come back from my trade show in Europe. But especially on that route, it can be tough to find space. Not to be deterred, I dug and dug to find acceptable routings and pitched the following to Justine last night, both of which were vetoed. I’m curious if you would have done any of these, or if I’m crazy for even considering them! I think they sounded pretty good, but I don’t want to use all the points required if my travel companion is going to be miserable with all the connections.

Outbound option 1:
OAK-SLC-AMS-CPH-FAE
(Buy OAK-SLC for ~$100, SLC-AMS in KLM 787-9 business for 70k Delta miles, AMS-CPH-FAE on SAS for $150)

Outbound option 2:
SFO-ORD-CPH-FAE
(This is all one award routing – amazingly – although the SFO-ORD and CPH-FAE legs are in economy)

Return option 1:
FAE-CPH-AMS-LAX-SFO
(Basically the reverse of the first outbound option, with LAX instead of SLC)

Return option 2:
FAE-KEF-SEA-SFO
(Buy FAE-KEF for ~$100, KEF-SEA in Icelandic business for 50k Alaska miles +$100, SEA-SFO as part of the same award but in economy)

What do you think? If you had the miles and the inclination to go to the Faroe Islands, would you settle for any of these, or would you keep digging? And have I missed any obvious options here?