International award tickets for a not-yet-born baby?
I'm trying to take the family to Asia in August. Caveat: wife and I are expecting #2 in early Feb. I'm looking to use miles to book the wife and kids into Business class and purchasing myself an economy ticket to upgrade with SWUs. The availability (U and C) is there for mid August.
Called AA yesterday morning and I was able to put the seats on hold. Then called back last night to pay and was told they couldn't issue the tickets without a DOB. Rep suggested I book the rest of the family now and try again for the baby after he/she is born. This is not acceptable to me because it doesn't seem likely that the award availability will be there 4 months from now. I would prefer to travel in August. I suppose if I can't get these seats ticketed, I will need to wait until Feb to book, which could mean traveling as late as December.
I've read several threads here discussing how to ticket an unborn child, but most of the suggestions offered deal with domestic travel. My understanding from those threads is you can get away with this domestically because there is no ID requirement for under-two's to travel. My question is: has anyone been able to do this on AA? Recently?
Why do you want to get a full award ticket for what I'm assuming will be a lap infant? You can get the award tickets for adults and other children, and then call AA to get a lap infant ticket which should be 10% of what the non-award fare cost should be.
Pray for everyone involved that you don't have a colic-y baby in J on a flight to Asia
I'm trying to take the family to Asia in August. Caveat: wife and I are expecting #2 in early Feb. I'm looking to use miles to book the wife and kids into Business class and purchasing myself an economy ticket to upgrade with SWUs. The availability (U and C) is there for mid August.
Called AA yesterday morning and I was able to put the seats on hold. Then called back last night to pay and was told they couldn't issue the tickets without a DOB. Rep suggested I book the rest of the family now and try again for the baby after he/she is born. This is not acceptable to me because it doesn't seem likely that the award availability will be there 4 months from now. I would prefer to travel in August. I suppose if I can't get these seats ticketed, I will need to wait until Feb to book, which could mean traveling as late as December.
I've read several threads here discussing how to ticket an unborn child, but most of the suggestions offered deal with domestic travel. My understanding from those threads is you can get away with this domestically because there is no ID requirement for under-two's to travel. My question is: has anyone been able to do this on AA? Recently?
The only way I can think of doing this is to book the ticket with an arbitrary name, DOB, and gender (unless you have decided on the name and know the gender already), and once the child is born, call back and ask for a name change on the ticket.
Even if the agent is willing to do the name change (and it can be done, though it is done rarely), it must be an all AA itinerary.
Reserve two award seats for your wife (use "Xtra Seat" as the passenger name, the same way that you would for a fat person or a cello).
Then after the baby is born, you can see if the EXP desk can work some magic to convert the Extra Seat to the baby's name. Even if it involves cancelling the extra seat and re-purchasing the award ticket, that should be free for an EXP. The EXP desk should be able to contact revenue management, explain the special circumstances, and ensure the inventory is re-released into the same award inventory so that you can re-book it for the baby.
If they refuse to change "Xtra Seat", (extremely unlikely, IMO) you can add the baby as a lap child and still use the extra seat. The worst possible outcome I can see is that you will be out the 10% lap child fee.
Vowwww.... So a car seat in a lie flat business class seat. I am sure you will be the talk of the town OR at least talk of the plane :-)
Having a child in a car seat is the safest way to restrain him/her. In case of turbulence the baby can slip from the arms. If restrained in a seat (regardless if it lies flat or not) is much much better.
Also if OP wants to use his miles for this, not sure why he's getting flak about it. It's his prerogative.
Programs: AA EXP, UA 1P, MR Plat, SPG Plat, HH Diamond
Posts: 806
I can't imagine that people with a child would need to travel. I'm convinced they should sit at home until the kids are at least 15. Grandma and Grandpa can come visit them, even though Grandpa just had a stroke and can't walk very well.
Programs: Marriott Silver, PC Gold, HH Silver, Starwood Gold, AA Plat, Avis First
Posts: 456
Quote:
Originally Posted by living near shamu
Quote:
Originally Posted by DFWsakp
Vowwww.... So a car seat in a lie flat business class seat. I am sure you will be the talk of the town OR at least talk of the plane :-)
Having a child in a car seat is the safest way to restrain him/her. In case of turbulence the baby can slip from the arms. If restrained in a seat (regardless if it lies flat or not) is much much better.
Also if OP wants to use his miles for this, not sure why he's getting flak about it. It's his prerogative.
He is completely free to do that. I just found it amusing and so will other traditional passengers on the flight. In all my flights so far (probably 750+ in 12 yrs), I have never seen a Car Seat in Business/First on a domestic or international flight (always seen them in coach).
As for him spending his miles, he is free to block the entire Business Class even using Standard Awards if needed. His choice and his miles.
As a member of FT, it is out duty to advise flyers on getting the best of their miles. After that it is completely their own choice.
cant imagine traveling in business class or first class with a crying baby for the haul... i hope it does not happen on any of my flights....
I flew a double redeye in business with a 1 year old, he did great, and made platinum. MVD-MIA-ORD-DEL, back when AA flew to Delhi. Really babies are pretty easy to travel with, it's kids old enough to get bored and want to explore, but not yet old enough to be able to really plug in and watch videos which are the problems.
Btw, you'd have to pay %10 of a full business fare to do the infant in seat even if the rest of you are on miles. The way it works out, it makes more sense to get the baby a seat using miles.
