Redeeming miles & points can be complicated under the best of circumstances. If you’re traveling with infants, it gets even more complicated, and it’s a reality that many people are thrust into, once they start a family.
Continue reading: Infant Award Travel: How Much It Costs, Which Airlines Are Best, How To Book
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I can confirm that CX is ridiculously high. Just added my newborn to an ex-US roundtrip business class award ticket to Hong Kong and it was over $1k. Also added my newborn to a roundtrip AA business class booking to Europe and it was less than $250.
I’d love a companion post on the airlines that give a discount when getting kids a seat. I know AF does, but are there others?
Can we try to gather some data points on AA pricing for lap infants? I've seen conflicting information on Reddit etc. I talked to multiple AA agents and all of them were saying that lap infant pricing is 10% of some fixed full flex J fare (and has no relation to whatever cheapest J ticket you may find for a specific route - in other words, it's always the same price).
One needs to carefully determine airline policy if a child will have their second birthday on or before the last flight on the reservation. My aging memory tells me that if you book a, say, ORD-PHX round trip and the kid has their second birthday after the first flight and on or before the date of the second, the child is not permitted to be a lap infant for either leg.
Except on BA, where lap infant remains a lap infant even if they turn 2 during the trip.
My own experience adding a lap infant on my award international tickets:
- Singapore, easy, quick, it is a short international flight and added it for free;
- Air Canada, easy, quick and 2500 points only;
- American Airlines, easy, very slow (2 days) and 10% cash;
- Qatar, easy, not so quick, and 10% cash, even trying many times with points;
- KLM, impossible, they never answer, customer support is horrible and I cancelled the ticket after all;
Trying to organize an infant in their own seat on an award ticket on BA right now. So annoying they won’t just let me buy it normally online b/c the kiddo will be under 2 at time of flight and workflow is only for infant in arms. Setting up for some quality time on BA hold tomorrow…