Fly-All-You-Want Norway Air Pass Returns for Summer Travel

A nationally recognized reporter, writer, and consumer advocate, Ed Perkins focuses on how travelers can find the best deals and avoid scams.

He is the author of "Online Travel" (2000) and "Business Travel: When It's Your Money" (2004), the first step-by-step guide specifically written for small business and self-employed professional travelers. He was also the co-author of the annual "Best Travel Deals" series from Consumers Union.

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Perkins was founding editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter, one of the country's most influential travel publications, from which he retired in 1998. He has also written for Business Traveller magazine (London).

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Before editing Consumer Reports Travel Letter, Perkins spent 25 years in travel research and consulting with assignments ranging from national tourism development strategies to the design of computer-based tourism models.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Perkins lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife.

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Ever wish you could buy a rail pass for the skies? This summer, Norwegian regional airline Wideroe is once again offering a seasonal fly-all-you-want Norway air pass covering all of its routes. The airline flies a relatively dense route system throughout Norway, plus flights to/from Aberdeen, Goteborg, and Kobenhavn.

The base pass, covering two weeks, is divided into three zones, with prices ranging from $435 for a single zone to $589 for all of Norway. An additional week is priced about half the two-week rate. Flying is essentially unlimited for the two to three weeks you purchase, and the air pass is valid for the full months of July and August, with the single exception of a maximum of four flights between any pair of cities.

True all-you-can-fly air passes like this one are rare. Lots of airlines offer what they call air passes, but are really visitor tickets: A set number of flight segments at a set price per segment. I know of no other passes like Wideroe’s available right now. What was previously the best known such pass, for France, dissolved many years ago. Could air passes be making a comeback now?

As with all-you-can-travel rail passes, this airpass is a good deal only if you want to spend a lot of time flying around Norway. Flying from Bergen to Tromso to Honningsvag (on the North Cape) and returning on individual tickets, for example, would probably cost somewhere around the price of the three-zone pass—so if you want to add a few more destinations, the pass is a good deal.

But scheduling trips can be a problem, because many of the routes to outlying areas fly only two or three times a week. And just the flying can eat up a lot of time. If you’re dreaming of two weeks exploring Norway from top to bottom, though, take a look.

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Consumer advocate Ed Perkins has been writing about travel for more than three decades. The founding editor of the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, he continues to inform travelers and fight consumer abuses every day at SmarterTravel.

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