Travel with Children - Infant In Seat Discounts? - Travel Internationally

Hi,

We will be traveling with a 6-month old from IAD (Washington Dulles) to BKK (Bangkok, Thailand) later this year. Called United and was told that I would have to pay full airfare for the baby to have his own seat. Is this normal for the other airlines? I was under the impression that the baby would get a discounted fare ( anything > 10% but < full price). Just wanted to double check before pulling the trigger. TIA.

A quick search reveals that KE, QR, TK, DL, VS, LH, AA and TG all offer a 25% discount for children under 12 (and infants with their own seat).

The only two I didn't offer a discount were UA and SQ.

Welcome to FT!

I've never received a discount for a child on UA.

@pseudoswede Thanks. What was your quick search method? just curious...

Also, just to confirm. You didn't mean 25% of the full fare, right?

Id avoid UA anyway - they are not very good with kids. Try the shortest flight time on a EU or Asian carrier (preferably those with the most legroom if in Y).

I'd like to stick with *A to keep my status. The only cheaper flights than UA are on LH but unfortunately operated by UA as well. NH used to be my preferred airline but their prices have gone through the roof recently. Thanks for the advice but it seems like I hate to stick with United. :(

@pseudoswede Thanks. What was your quick search method? just curious...

Also, just to confirm. You didn't mean 25% of the full fare, right?

I just did a fare rules lookup on KVS Tool (http://www.kvstool.com).

And, yes, if the base adult fare is $1000, then the child fare would be $750.

By all means look into it but often I end up buying tickets at the adult fare-and it's still cheaper!

On our last flight, similar happened. United and some other airlines would let my son fly out as a child and we would have only had to have paid for him as adult on the way back (he had his 12th birthday in the States).

Having said that, we usually get a slight discount on the children.

We still went with Lufthansa, even though he was an adult both ways. The overall ticket prices were still less.

United is fine. They don't have the 10,000 F/A's the Asian companies do. It really depends on who you get on the day...

I just did a fare rules lookup on KVS Tool (http://www.kvstool.com).

And, yes, if the base adult fare is $1000, then the child fare would be $750.

I've never received a discount. Probably because I've never paid "full fare". Traveling with my kids, I always look for the cheapest flights possible, and usually this is discounted fares.

Any reason you want your child to have his/her own seat?

Any reason you want your child to have his/her own seat?

Because it's more comfortable and basically, the only safe way for a baby to fly. I always purchased seats for my under-2's (with very specific exceptions) and used their car seats on board.

We have a whole thread discussing the merits of buying a seat for babies, if you want to check it out.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-children/696767-car-seat-not-car-seat-question-merged-threads.html

A quick search reveals that KE, QR, TK, DL, VS, LH, AA and TG all offer a 25% discount for children under 12 (and infants with their own seat).

The only two I didn't offer a discount were UA and SQ.

Thanks for the post.

That's generally off the regular paid fare for the adult booked at the same time as such a U-12 seated child. The list used to be longer than that.

Which airlines offer a discounted mileage ticket for such children too?

Also, just to confirm. You didn't mean 25% of the full fare, right?

Oops! I mis-read that. From my experience, and from reading these fare rules, it's 25% off the base fare that you're paying as an adult (read: discount applied on top of discounted fare). Every time I book the cheapest fare to Sweden on SK (either on sas.us or a place like Expedia), the 25% child discount still applies.

Looking at a sampling the AA fares for IAD-BKK, the cheapest and most expensive fares all have a 25% child discount.


Which airlines offer a discounted mileage ticket for such children too?

There is a thread somewhere on FT that has a list of airlines that allow for children to have their own FF number as well as discounted FF redemption. SK, I know, offers 50% mileage discounts for children FF redemption.