Chris Elliott points to a serious problem with frequent flyer tickets for parents of small children: Full-fare fees for lap infants.
Typically, the charge for carrying an infant on your lap on an international flight is 10% of the fare paid. The child doesn’t get a seat. But what’s the fare, if you’re paying with miles?
In the example Chris cites, the passengers are using miles to travel in business class to Asia. (Which is a great use of miles, I might add.) But United is calculating the infant fare using the full-fare business class ticket price. And 10% of the full-fare ticket comes to $1280.00. Ouch.
What airlines should do is introduce a separate mileage redemption tier for infants. Charge 10% of the miles that an adult would redeem, plus the taxes and fees. Airlines could even offer a cash alternative, by charging the cash equivalent of those miles. You can buy miles from the airline, after all, so why not use that rate as a metric for a cash payment?
But charging $1280 is just asinine.
Parents: Have you faced similar problems before? Have other airlines been more accommodating when you’ve booked with miles, charging a more reasonable rate for a lap infant? Have you bought coach fare tickets and simply forfeited the seat? Have you just shown up at the airport and tried your luck? Or have you found other strategies for getting around these rules? Hit the comments with your tales…
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January 8th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Interesting. I’ve avoided flying on United for several years, and you’ve just given me another reason.
FWIW, my wife and I did exactly what you just described on a recent domestic trip on Alaska Airlines. We booked first-class tickets using our air miles and brought our then three-month old daughter with us. There was no extra charge for the infant.
It was an excellent experience. The flight attendants were very helpful and kind, and our fellow passengers (most of whom were parents themselves) were very patient. Some were even vying for the right to feed her!
It did help, I’m sure, that our daughter mostly slept through the flight.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Have you found other strategies for getting around these rules? Yeah, don’t bring infants on flights. The infants hate it. The surrounding passengers hate it. And so do the parents, dealing with a screaming kid and irate passengers for hours on end! Get a babysitter. Save money, FFM points and stress!
January 8th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Does the $1280 infant fare come with all-you-can-drink liquid Benadryl?
Kidding, kidding…
January 8th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Eric, I am unaware of any US airline charging a 10% lap-infant fee for domestic travel. (Someone please correct me if I’m wrong about that…) Glad you had a good experience.
Parent, as much as I dislike screaming children (and that’s a dislike that isn’t confined to air travel), I was a traveling infant myself once. It’s rather easy to categorically say that no infants should travel, don’t you think?
Tino, you’re not a flight attendant for Continental Express, are you? Your prescription sounds oddly familiar…
January 9th, 2009 at 2:52 am
Sorry Mark, but I have to disagree. –I believe airlines should stop allowing infants to travel on their parents lap completely and require a normal seat and ticket to be purchased. It’s safer for the child, better for fellow passengers, and, if we’re lucky, would result in fewer screaming infants on flights.
January 9th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Frankly, children shouldn’t be allowed in business class. There’s nothing worse than paying extra money for a business class ticket, only to be kept awake (and annoyed) on a 10 hour flight because of someone’s crying infant. It’s icing on the cake when the crying infant is an upgrade (or even worse, an op-up).
January 9th, 2009 at 9:56 am
My two year old has been on about 25 flight segments, including two trips from California to Europe. Apart from one descent into Portland he’s done terrific on our lap. Just make sure infants are nursing (or sucking on a bottle) on takeoff and landing they’re generally quite happy. Sitting in the back makes it noisier, in case they need to be drowned out. With regards to international travel, the bulkhead bassinets on foreign airlines are to be admired for sleeping babies.
One of my toddler’s international flights on our lap was on Aer Lingus and the other Continental. On both we had to pay the 10% (about $125), but on the Continental flight we were also socked with a $320 fuel surcharge. My wife – who was using miles – did not have the charge. But in the end they both went from California to Sweden with two multi-day layovers in New York for about $500. Now that he’s two those days are over….
Lastly, I agree with Eric: in my experience Alaska (and Horizon) are very accommodating of lap infants.
January 9th, 2009 at 10:45 am
It’s interesting how you can tell from these comments who has kids and who doesn’t. I recently traveled with an infant, and we bought him his own seat, which turned out to be a useful (if expensive) decision. I understand and would accept on-your-lap surcharges–babies take resources which must be paid for–and the $1280 fee cited above, while pricey, is fair on a relative basis. (If you can pay twelve grand to be pampered on your way to Asia, you can understand why United wants an extra 10% to pamper your kid, too.)
January 9th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
We paid around $800 for each child on a lap. It was Delta\Aeroflot one way business class Denver-JFK-Moscow. And we hhad a big problem with issuing the infants tickets, because our was paid by miles and babies are paid in full.. It’s impossible to book mixed (paid with miles and by money) pax in one PNR and it’s prohibited to issue just babies without parents in the same reservation. So it was i huge problem.
January 9th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Maybe it’s an income thing, but my sister never flew with a child on her lap when they were babies. Always bought a seat and used a child car seat.
January 10th, 2009 at 5:51 am
This varies entirely by airline (note: the ticketing airline, not the airline you’re flying).
For example, Qantas, Lufthansa, and british midland (among others) do not charge anything for an infant fare other than some de minimus incremental taxes.
United will charge 10% of full fare for an infant on an award internationally, I believe. But if your United award flights are redeemed for out of a Lufthansa Miles & More account, the infant is free. The ticketing carrier’s policies are what applies here. A great demonstration of how choice of frequent flyer program matters! And ‘babies on planes’ and ‘babies in premium cabins’ discussions aside, 10% of full fare on an award ticket is ludicrous regardless of class of service, though I suppose I could swallow 10% of lowest published fare for the route….
January 13th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Yet another reason to park your *A miles in BD Diamond Club:
Infants under 2 years, accompanied by an adult and not occupying a seat, travel free on all flights. Children aged 2-11 years (inclusive) travel for approximately 75% of the adult redemption level on bmi, but for 100% on all partner flights.
January 13th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Thanks for the correction/clarification, Gary.
With regards to the bmi (British Midland, or airline code BD) Diamond Club as a program for collecting Star Alliance miles, I would add that they’ll give you 3000 miles just for signing up. You get the bonus even if you don’t fly with them.
Alternatively, if you know you will fly with bmi, and you join their program, you can get 9000 bonus miles, if you join and fly before March 31, 2009. Use this link to sign up.
bmi’s redemption chart for flight awards is here.
January 18th, 2009 at 10:16 am
I used to wonder why I would occasionally see infants/toddlers in business class. The first thought was “wow, their parents must be rich”. Now that I have a 9 month old who just took her first transatlantic flight last month, I know why. I have tons of miles and it was a very easy decision for me. Pay 10% of the full fare or use miles for biz class – use the miles. My child was very happy. On the way there, she slept most of the time in her car seat and had lots of room to play on the floor (bulkhead biz class seat – used the duvet to cover the floor) on the way back. It was relatively stress free for all of us. Spending 7-9 hours with an infant on your lap sounds about as appealing as nails on a chalkboard.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:39 am
I’m going through this with Delta right now on an itinerary to South Africa. I have infant twins and have booked an award ticket for both my wife and I for economy class. I had quite an argument with customer service over the explanation of the infant-in-arms international fee. A CS agent first told me it was 10% of the base fare plus taxes and fees for the ticketed itinerary on that day (not the day of flight, the day of ticketing!). I then spoke to a ’supervisor’ who explained that it is actually a fee that is calculated by determining the average fare for the market being serviced. In otherwords, it appears that Delta needs to determine how much a ticket to Africa SHOULD cost, not how much it actually costs. The problem of course is, if you’re not a Platinum and you suddenly find out your ‘free’ ticket is actually going to cost you over $1k, you have to pay to redeposit your miles if you can’t afford the trip. A separate mileage tier for infants is a much more transparent and productive way for airlines to deal with customers. I’m wondering if I would have to pay the infant fees if I booked on Air France or KLM.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Before I had a child I wasn’t thrilled if there was a baby close by that was screaming but I certainly didn’t think they didn’t have a right to be there! If someone with a child buys a business class ticket for their family they should be able to fly in that class. Children can be loud for sure but please stop being so elitist as to say that they should be sent to the back of the plane. I fly business class every chance I get now with my 7 month old, it makes a parents journey much, much easier.