Atmos Rewards, the loyalty program of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, recently updated its policy when it comes to award travel for lap infants. The program now has the industry’s most generous policy for this, and it’s a major reason to redeem points through the program.
Atmos Rewards charges (basically) nothing for lap infants
I’ve written in the past about the topic of infant award travel, for those situations where you’re traveling with a child under the age of two (this assumes they’re traveling as a lap infant, and you choose not to get a separate seat for them).
Broadly speaking, the policy in the industry is that there’s no cost to add a lap infant on domestic flights, while on international flights the cost is equal to 10% of the revenue adult fare, plus taxes & fees. That typically applies even on an award ticket.
As you might expect, this can get pretty expensive. For example, if you were to redeem American AAdvantage miles for an adult to travel in business class from Miami to London, you’d then have to pay 10% of the cash business class fare, plus taxes & fees, for the lap infant. In some cases that could be close to $1,000, so that’s rough, just for the privilege of holding a baby for a long time.
However, there are some loyalty programs that have better policies. For example, Air Canada Aeroplan lets you add pay just 2,500 Aeroplan points or 25 CAD to add an infant to any one-way award, in addition to paying taxes & fees.
Well, there’s a new program that now has the industry’s most generous policy. If you’re redeeming Atmos Rewards points, you can now add a lap infant to an international award ticket at no cost, aside from the taxes & fees (we’re talking government mandated taxes & fees, and not any carrier imposed surcharges). This doesn’t just apply for travel on Alaska and Hawaiian, but also applies to travel on all partner airlines, as long as the ticket is issued through Atmos Rewards (so it’s on 027 ticket stock).
Alaska’s website was recently updated to reflect this:
For long-haul international Atmos Rewards bookings, lap infants are charged only the applicable international taxes. At this rate, the infant will travel on your lap and won’t have their own seat.
That almost sounded too good to be true, so I checked with a spokesperson for Alaska, who confirmed this (“OA” stands for “other airlines,” and “027 stock” stands for tickets issued by Alaska or Hawaiian, so that includes all Atmos Rewards redemptions):
For both AS/HA and OA metal, lap infants on all accompanying award tickets are only charged applicable international taxes. However, the ticket must be on 027 stock, or it goes to the ticketing carrier per their policy.
This is incredible, and a huge advantage to using the program. Just as an example, a while back the best award ticket I could find for a family trip including our younger son (who travels as a lap infant) was in American international first class. I ticketed, and then remembered that I’d have to pay 10% of the cash fare for the lap infant. That turned out to be over $1,400, so I immediately canceled the award, and found another option.
Loyalty programs ordinarily pocket this lap infant revenue
The funny thing about lap infant award travel is where the money actually ends up going. For example, if you redeem Alaska points for travel on American, you could technically add your lap infant either through Alaska or through American. It’s not often in the airline industry where you have the flexibility as to which airline you do something through.
Some might wonder “well isn’t American expecting that lap infant revenue if you redeem Alaska points, but they don’t charge anything?”
As I understand it, this is where it gets sort of funny. When you ticket a lap infant through one frequent flyer program, that revenue (aside from taxes) doesn’t actually go to the operating airline, but instead, stays with the loyalty program. So as you can expect, it’s really lucrative if you have someone redeem miles, and then throw you hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars just for a lap infant.
So Atmos Rewards is forgoing quite a bit of revenue with this opportunity, but it definitely makes the program a lot more attractive for those traveling with lap infants.
Bottom line
Atmos Rewards, the loyalty program of Alaska and Hawaiian, now lets you add lap infants to international awards while just paying taxes & fees. This is literally the most generous policy in the industry, since you’d ordinarily have to pay 10% of the cash fare for the lap infant on an international ticket, and that can get very expensive for premium cabin tickets.
Some programs do offer much better deals for lap infant travel, but nothing quite like this. So if you are traveling with a lap infant, this is a major reason to book through Atmos Rewards.
What do you make of Atmos Rewards’ lap infant award travel policy?
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