MilesBuzz! - Ticketing strategy?

We're flying to KC for Christmas, and this is also the first flight for my 2 year old where we will purchase a seat.

I am planning on a $220 SJC-DFW-MCI fare on AA, and wanted confirm some reasoning:

Should I buy the tickets at aa.com in three separate transactions, in order to get 3 1,000 booking bonuses? Is there a chance that I won't get all three seats on the same plane if I do this?

I don't know how the 1,000 mile online bonus works with regards to multiple passengers on a single online booking record, but if you are concerned about the three of you not getting on the same flight, you can use the "View Seat Maps" function of the AA.com web site to determine if there are sufficient seats for all three of you on the specific flight you want. If there are a lot of seats, I wouldn't worry that in the amount of time you take to book each seat individually (in order to each receive the 1,000 mile online booking bonus) that the flight would sell out. If there were only three (or whatever your risk threshhold for number of seats is) seats available, I may not risk it.

Good luck

Some airline web sites require that the person whose name is on the credit card be one of the ticketed passengers. Assuming your 2-year old doesn't (yet) have a card, you might need to go 2 and 1.

Also, to be sure that there's no glitch with the baby's ticket, you might want to go that way anyway. By my calculations, 1,000 miles isn't worth the torture of convincing AA that they shouldn't separate you and the baby by 25 rows...

Thanks, onedog. I had thought of that and will definitely check before I try. I just called Cust. Svc. and the agent told me that the pax travelling earns the 1,000 bonus if the trip was booked on-line. So, her read is that we all three get 1,000 miles even if I book it in one transaction. (And yes, I got her name, just in case!)

AA.com says that you can buy with someone else's cc, but the ticket will be sent to their address.

Also on the AA web site you can put the transaction on hold and complete the booking at a CTO or the airport. I have done that a number of times when I wanted my web bonus and I had coupons, vouchers or whatnot to turn in.I got my miles and used my certificates at the same time. Just be sure to save the record locator number.

I have booked several trips on AA.com and delta-air.com and have received the booking bonus for all of us each time.

As far as seating is concerned, one time, none of our seats were together. Don't worry, they will not allow your toddler to be seated away from you. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Just get to the gate early and let them know your situation. The gate agent called up potential seat swap candidates to the desk and asked if they were flying alone and would be willing to change seats. We ended up with our seats all together. The key is to get there early enough so that they have time to switch without doing it at the last minute.

Also, if you are elite, you shouldn't book the child in an exit row since they are not exit row qualified. If you use a FAA approved car seat, it can only be used in a window seat or the middle seat of a center section in a wide body airplane. I try not to book tight connections when the family is traveling together.

Good luck

100% CORRECT YOU GET THE THREE SEPERATE 1000 MILE BONUS EVEN IF YOU BOOK PAST HISTORY NOT SURE IF STILL VALID