bodory

Here is the information I have gathered about Flying Blue award travel with children / infants. Feel free to PM me and I will modifiy or add information to the post if anything is not correct or missing.

Preliminary remarks :
- an infant is a child aged less than 2 ; a child is aged between 2 and 11
- FWIW, the below information is valid only for AF (KL?) and not for Skyteam


1 – Awards
A – Children
FB considers our children like adults, therefore they pay the same amount of miles and taxes than adults

B – Infants
Booking an award involving an infant (travelling with at least one of his parents of course) is not possible online : one has to call FB.

For domestic travel within France, infants pay nothing, as they do for revenue tickets.

For European and long-haul travel, infants pay 10% of the lowest available fare of the cabin at the time of booking. Taxes are not due. Meaning, if I fare bucket is available at the time of booking, infant will pay 10% of 4382 EUR for a CDG-EZE-CDG ; but if only J is available (*), infant will pay 10% of 8780 EUR. Ouch ! With that price, you get nothing else than the right to have your infant on your lap for a 13h35 min flight.

Attention : for revenue tickets, it seems infant pays 10% of the price of the accompanying adult ticket. So if the adult pays 1060 EUR for a CDG-EZE-CDG in H, infant pays 106 EUR. However, if the adult decides to buy B ticket and pay 3030 EUR for the same flights, infant pays 303 EUR. At least this is how the online booking tool works. Again, taxes are not due.

(*) One could reasonably think it is unlikely that only J bucket would be available if there is availability for awards. See open questions below.


2 – Upgrades
A – Children
Flying Blue considers our children like adults, therefore they pay the same amount of miles and taxes than adults.

B – Infants
When an adult decides to upgrade with miles, AF reprices the ticket of the infant according to the above mentioned rule : 10% of the lowest available fare of the cabin at the time of booking.


3 – Process
The process consists in calling FB to book these kinds of award. But it is AF that will price and issue the infant’s ticket.

Adding a child to an existing booking is also complicated.

So do not call FB 24 hours before your flights…


4 – Ongoing questions
- How things are handled for KL and Skyteam partners?
- How long does last this process involving FB, then AF, then FB again ?
- What happens if I or Z fare bucket was available at the time of booking the award through FB but only J is available when AF issues the award ticket for the infant?
- What conditions should be applied to the infant ticket : the one of the fare bucket or are these infant award ticket fully refundable against 45 EUR?
- How is refunded the infant ticket if the adult travels with open-miles option and finally decides to cancel his ticket at no cost?
- How much FB charges (apart from the toll number) in service fees for ticketing infant awards?
- For upgrade process, is the price of the initial ticket of the infant deducted of the price of the new ticket?
- Upgrade awards are sold as one-ways : how is priced the infant ticket if the lowest available fare of the cabin at the time of booking is a round-trip one?