It don’t matter where it takes me
Long as I can keep this feeling
Running through my soul (soul)

Never took this road before
Destination unknown
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Destination unknown
Won’t be coming back this way
Gotta go it alone
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Destination unknown

Marietta Waters, “Destination Unknown”

After we bought our WIZZ All You Can Fly-passes on August 14, the product, limited to 10.000 members, was sold out quickly. It seems to have struck a chord.

But press for Wizz Air generally had a negative connotation. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/15/travel/wizz-air-all-you-can-fly/index.html

https://www.euronews.com/travel/2024/08/14/wizz-air-has-launched-an-unlimited-flight-subscription-service-but-whats-the-catch

When Ryanair CEO Michael O´Leary criticised WIZZ All You Can Fly we were pretty certain that WIZZ All You Can Fly must be a good product!(https://fortune.com/europe/2024/08/22/ryanair-ceo-michael-oleary-gets-into-war-of-words-with-wizz-air-after-slamming-e499-unlimited-flight-deal-as-a-scam/)

O´Leary even mentioning the name of a competitor and his heavy criticism indicates that he was just jealous it wasn´t a Ryanair idea (I would not be surprised if someone was fired for it 😉)!

Anyway, key points of criticism of the WIZZ All You Can Fly pass are:

• The booking window of 72 hours: Tickets can only be booked within a 72 hour window before takeoff. One cannot book connecting flights or return tickets if they are not in this 72-hour booking window. There is a chance that one does not get a ticket for the connecting flight or does not get a ticket for the return flight.
• A € 9,90 booking fee for each booking.
• No luggage (except that tiny 40x30x20cm bag accepted with the cheapest regular tickets).
• No guarantee that tickets will be available even within the 72 hour booking window.

Well, Wizzair did not hide those things. For us they were pretty clear before booking. But honestly: what would you expect?

• The booking window of 72 hours: a product that is obviously designed to exploit the last free seats in a plane for € 9,90 clearly can give only a short lead time for booking.
• No luggage: this is a standard component of cheap tickets of most airlines. If required, one can add luggage to the WIZZ All You Can Fly-tickets in the same way as to any other ticket.
• No guarantee that tickets will be available even within the 72 hour booking window: this indeed is no surprise but still can be problematic. In the past, we have flown fully packed Wizz Air flights not only once. Agreed, it is unpleasent to have either to stay where you are or buy an expensive ticket to get home.
  Some raised the question if Wizz Air would maybe not release tickets for WIZZ All You Can Fly even if flights were not full. There is no way to check this for customers nor is there transparency about this. But our conclusion regarding that question was that we believe that Wizz Air wants/needs to make this product a success. Therefore, we would be surprised if Wizz Air risked negative consumer comments. But obviously you need a plan B for not getting a connecting or return ticket. You can read more about our plan B strategy and the question how full Wizzair flights are in two weeks.

Still, some doubts remain. We will know better after our first flight(s).

But we had one more question :

How much do you have to fly that WIZZ All You Can Fly pays off?

From our hub (Vienna), we estimate Wizz Air´s average cheapest one way ticket amounts to around € 40,- (obviously depending when and where to go). If you are owner of a WIZZ All You Can Fly-pass and only have to pay a booking fee of appr. € 10,-, you save about € 30,- compared to the cheapest regular ticket. Saving € 30,- per one way flight, how often do you have to fly to bring in the cost of the WIZZ All You Can Fly pass of € 499,-? Divide the cost of € 499,- for the WIZZ All You Can Fly pass by € 30,- savings per one way flight. 499 by 30 equals 16,63. Round it to 17. This means that after you saved 17 times € 30,-, you will have recovered the cost of the WIZZ All You Can Fly pass. 17 one way tickets equals 8 to 9 return trips (each return trip consisting of 2 one way flights, to the destination and back). Even less, if your trip contains connection flights and you use 3 or 4 one way tickets per trip!

We will track our progress towards break-even in this blog, checking the regular ticket prices when booking our WIZZ All You Can Fly tickets. Of course, we will also track failed attempts to buy a WIZZ All You Can Fly ticket and other interesting metrics (like our CO₂ footprint).

Being self employed and having flexible schedules, we still have obligations to meet, dates when we have to be home. As much as we would love to, we could not stay in some destinations and just wait till we get a free ticket to fly back! We needed a Plan B!

Read more about our Plan B strategy in two weeks. Next week we will talk about the first steps in planning and prioritizing our WIZZ All You Can Fly trips.