SEA to GLA alternatives

I don't know about flights from SEA, but from here is Missouri it looks like Air Canada will be our best option for getting to Scotland next summer. Also any chance you could fly into EDI? From my research looks like EDI has a lot more and better flight options. My original plan was to fly into GLA then home from EDI. Now it looks like EDI round trip.

Good luck with your search.

Have you searched for flights to Edinburgh? It's a lot easier to get to Dundee from Edinburgh airport than Glasgow. There is a direct bus that makes no stops between the airport and Dundee. (I've taken it a few times including three weeks ago.)

The other idea is to fly to London Heathrow. Loganair has two flights a day between Heathrow and Dundee M-F and one flight on Sunday. I believe they are now codesharing with British Airways. (I've flown this route a few times.)

Any reason why you are booking airfares so far in advance?

I looked at EDI, and the prices seem higher. I'll look at the LHR/DUN LoganAir connection, but I've found that Codeshare doesn't always mean what you hope. I'll have to wait until LoganAir releases their May flights in a couple of months. Although we're booking six other legs on LoganAIr, I've always found them a little pricey and less stable in pricing. Not to cast any aspersions on Logan Air!

I book so far in advance because 1) I don't find that fares drop, 2) flash sales never include May travel, 3) I've already heard from some B&Bs that are filling up, 4) I need to switch my focus to our 2027 Ireland trip, and I'm admittedly OCD.

I would not overly spend to get a specific schedule; schedules are going to change probably
multiple times between now and your travel dates.

If you do buy now, check your flight schedules periodically to make sure they are still what you
think they are.

Airfares are a function of initial assessment of demand from the airlines and ongoing monitoring
of travel and overall economic situation. Since you're going in May and Scotland is a popular
destination, it's not surprising the fares never go down. But, you are also looking in a straight
line approach and not considering "outside-the-box" options. For example, fly to Amsterdam
on one ticket and then take a short flight on a second ticket to GLA or EDI. Not at all guaranteeing
it will be cheaper, but you don't know until you check. Or a connection on, say SAS, which has
semi-annual sales to Copenhagen, Stockholm, and beyond.

Since you have a seemingly strict schedule requirement, you don't have much room to complain
about price.

If your flights later move to something undesirable, the airline will move you to something else
(within reason) at no extra cost, but they will most likely not give you a refund unless you
want to cancel entirely.

Maybe suck it up and fly Iceland Air. Their airborne amenities are pretty lousy, so maybe brng some nicer food of your own on board and make it a fancy picnic.

I'm with Shoeflyer, no matter what you book today, the schedule is going to change between now and next May. You'll probably be able to take advantage of a schedule change for the better.

Anyway, doesn't Delta offer something between regular economy and premium economy that gives more legroom? I fly out of Chicago, so 'm not well versed on Delta products.

Also, I'm seeing a lot of quite cheap econ direct flights to London from PDX in May 2026, +-$430. And some airlines don't even have their flights scheduled for May 2026 yet. Not sure what the fares for the next cabin up are.

But to me it seems early? I would at least take an exploratory week, shake every tree I could see and if nothing falls out then Icelandair.

When I'm figuring out flights, I often follow the good seats for a good price. So even if I landed on the continent for instance I would then spend a couple of days in Paris or Amsterdam or wherever and then just fly a cheap intra Europe hopper to Glasgow.

Also also, nicer seats come a lot cheaper for miles. I would exhaust any of those options first too. Too seems crazy but sometimes it's well worth it to buy Alaska miles when they are on sale and cash them for premium cabin seats to Europe.

United has Economy Plus, American has Main Cabin Extra, and Delta has Delta Comfort.

All 3 of these are either free if you have status or are revenue-producing items for the
airline if you don't, so you can get all of them at time of booking, extra $ or not.

Delta is notoriously high for mileage redemptions, United high but consistent, and
American has niches (esp in off season) where you can get some nice deals.

Hank's idea is something to consider, especially if you can time your purchase to a
bonus offer where you get 1.5 or 2x the miles. But you risk buying the miles and
then seeing the fare go up in the 30 minutes it took to buy them, and in most cases
the purchase is not refundable. Caveat emptor.

OP seems to have convinced themselves they need to do this now, but has moderate
angst about doing it. I don't think you are missing anything, but you might want to
consider being patient about the whole thing. Any sales on spring travel will most
likely not happen until the fall.

Given that trains from Glasgow to Dundee run frequently until 9.40 pm there is no obvious morning rush. And there are then several late night/early morning buses from Glasgow to Dundee.
Also by next Spring there is a widespread expectation that Ember Bus will be running a 24/7 Glasgow Airport to Dundee direct bus service.
You can do that soon on Ember anyway 4x a day changing in Glasgow as Ember start a new airport to central Glasgow service on 23 July, for £4.50 each way. Way less than the current airport bus. It is a limited opening trial service.
In the same way as Ember are already running a competing bus from Edinburgh Airport to Dundee for far less money than McGills/Xplore Dundee.

The last time I went to Scotland I went with Lufthansa via Amsterdam both ways, into Edinburgh and out of Glasgow. Have you looked at first flying to Vancouver and seeing if you can get a better flight from here? These days Air Canada seems to want to route everything through Montreal, but sometimes other airlines have more direct options. The flight from Amsterdam to Edinburgh was only an hour.

Several folks upthread have suggested specifics and hinted around details, I'll just suggest a more general approach which almost always works for me:

Flexibility is key. That means flexibility on dates, times, airlines, routings, comfort, and/or price. Maybe you can't be flexible on all those things, you prioritize what you must, but be aware that these are all tradeoffs. Be creative (or at least willing to) explore options for unconventional routings.

You obviously want to get between home (Medford?) and Glasgow. Stop focusing on the end points. First look at the longhaul flight(s) because that's where the comfort and cost tradeoffs will have the biggest impact. Find the best options for getting from someplace in western North America to someplace in (or near) the UK. Then look at options for getting yourself between home and the jumping-off point for the long flight, and from your landing point in Europe to your actual destination. So you have three distinct things to search and optimize. This may or may not all be on the same ticket - that's another tradeoff. Yes, it's complicated (and you gotta play out the tradeoffs three times). Then you gotta do it all over for the trip back home.

If you want the juice, that's the squeeze you gotta do sometimes. Most folks just buy up to avoid the work, or they just make different tradeoffs and live with it. And that's fine. I prefer creative routings.

This method works for me pretty much all the time (and I always use miles/points for the long flights so i can go in business class, which makes it many times more challenging). And I know how challenging it can be to get from the Pacific Northwest to Scotland and back, so I feel your pain: in 10 days I'm off to Shetland. My flights go SEA-DFW-LHR-ABZ-LSI (on American, British Air, Loganair). Return flights go LSI-BGO-FRA-YVR-SEA (on Loganair, Lufthansa, Air Canada). (Route is depicted here). Not a logical routing that most folks would pursue (or even want), but works well for us (the long flights are all in business class on points, connecting flights were fairly cheap). This is a fairly extreme example, and certainly not for everyone, I'm just saying that sometimes it's worth getting creative to solve problems or optimize what's most important for you. For me, I want comfort and sleep on the long flights so I arrive and return home reasonably well rested and feeling good. YMMV.

I've looked at all the alternatives suggested (available today, at least) and Iceland is the cheapest and has the shortest longhaul by two hours. Many of the choices (American, United) are using BA as codeshares, so the timetable is the same and there aren't legroom seats in coach unless you can grab an exit row, which is too unpredictable, or without upgrading to Premium. AerLingus, Lufthansa etc. are way more spendy before the legroom options, if there are any.

I'm also leery of uncovered flying, where Alaska Airlines making a change impacts my next flight with no recourse or similar. I've found that a single confirmation number is a necessity since my overall plans always have lots of moving parts and little wiggle room for missing connections on the way.

We've learned to take our own food, so the meal service isn't that valuable. I'll continue to look, but I'll probably book Iceland in the next day or so. I'll have several opportunities to cancel whenever they make tweaks to their schedule. This year to Dublin, Icelandair made trivial itinerary changes in 11 months, which had no impact except to make cancellation allowable.

A couple of things...

the Ember Edinburgh Airport to Dundee direct bus only operates between midnight and 4 AM. Other times you need to take the tram part of the way.

Flixbus runs a direct bus service from Glasgow Airport to Dundee. It stops in Glasgow, Stirling and Perth but there are no changes.

Don't waste your time looking for flights to Dundee from anywhere but London. (It does fly a couple of times a week to Kirkwall and Sumburgh but those are the same plane that is on the London flights.)

Have you looked at flights that connect to Aberdeen? It's not difficult to get from Aberdeen Airport to Dundee. I've done it numerous times.

I've been flying Condor's SEA-FRA on my last two trips, but if you want to connect on one ticket, you won't do it for less than you're getting with IcelandAir. $2500RT for two? With the 7.5-hour flight with legroom? I think that's a steal.

From Edinburgh Airport to Dundee on Ember the 3 minute tram ride to Ingliston, which normally costs £7.90, is included in the fixed price of £9.10, if booked up to 10 minutes before travel.
It is a very easy level transfer at Ingliston with a heated waiting room and toilets.
Ingliston to Dundee is £8 so they have an arrangement with the tram to get that for £1.10.

The other long standing route is the #747 bus from the airport to Inverkeithing station then the hourly train to Dundee, which you can buy as a through ticket.