salut0

I'm trying to book (with accompanying adults) an "infant in seat" ticket on LY. But their website only shows passenger types:

Children (in the main dropdown) -- which I assume is a child fare for age 2-12

and

Infant (0-2) -- which I assume is a lap infant

because it seems to be pricing that way.

How do I force it to book an Infant in Seat ticket? Can this even be done online?

Also, it's hard to see from El Al's own site what exact booking codes their Economy "fare types" really are. Any way to find that out?

An example fare breakdown that I want from ITA Matrix is:

Fare for 1 infant in seat
Fare 1: Carrier LY WUKRT7 LON to TLV GBP83.45
Passenger type INS, round trip fare, booking code W
Covers LHR-TLV (Economy)
Fare 2: Carrier LY URTUK TLV to LON GBP96.88
Passenger type INS, round trip fare, booking code U
Covers TLV-LHR (Economy)
Israeli Security and Insurance Surcharge (AP) GBP11.20
United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge (UB) GBP41.65
Subtotal per passenger GBP232.85
Number of passengers x1
Subtotal for 1 infant in seat GBP232.85

clubman

LY's website is the pits.

Call them.

salut0

Thanks for this info. We're booking by calling...

Related to this: do El Al's bulkhead seats have much less legroom than normal economy rows?

SeatGuru shows the bulkhead row 21 ABC HJK on the 737-900 as having "restricted legroom due to the position of the bulkhead wall". Does that mean it's better to book another row if the infant has their own seat and isn't using a bassinet which requires that they be placed at the bulkhead?

http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/El_...ng_737-900.php

Same question about row 46 DFG on the 777:
http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/El_...ng_777-200.php

salut0

More wrinkles here: El Al are now saying that

-- the car seat has to be IATA approved to fix into the airline seat
Fine: that's what I expected and what I know -- but how do they check this? Is the sticker on the side which says the seat is "certified for use in motor vehicles and aircraft" good enough for them, or will they insist on specific language about IATA or FAA approval?

-- the phone rep also said that for safety reasons, it’s almost certain that they will ask me to hold the baby for take off and landing, even if he is in the car seat
This seems weird. Why would they do this? Isn't it safer to have the baby in the seat, if you choose to provide your own car seat?

I may need to email El Al with the details of the car seat to make sure this is all OK. Has anyone encountered this request before?

Update after calling them: their phone rep now even says that they don't sell "Infant in Seat" fares at all and I'd have to buy a child fare. It doesn't sound like the price is so different between the two fare types, but it seems strange that I was able to find a published fare with the "infant in seat" passenger type on ITA Matrix but El Al maintain that they don't have that fare type.

joshwex90

What would be the difference between "Infant in Seat" and "Child Fare?" Shouldn't the price still be the same, i.e. full price?

salut0

It's not the same price as the Adult tickets even though the booking codes are the same.

I think that "child 2-11" and "infant in seat" are basically the same fare but the person I spoke to at their call center was pretty officious on the phone, angrily asking where I'd found the fare I was referring to. (It was ITA Matrix, actually, but anyway...)

They also told me that we can't book the bulkhead if we're booking a seat for the baby as well and they claimed it was because there was someone else sitting in that row so only two seats available. But ExpertFlyer seat maps show that the rows they originally gave us (when they assumed we wanted a bassinet) in the ticket that was on hold are still empty.

I suspect they are keeping them free for people who don't pay for a seat for an infant but who want to use the bassinet -- OK, fair enough, but maybe honesty about whether the seats are actually occupied would be a better policy?

joshwex90

Are they different fares always? Because I just did a dummy booking on LY and found that child and adult had the same price. Also found that infant in seat had the same fare as adult when booking the same flight through Expedia or Orbitz

salut0

So the fares I'm seeing for the route in question for an infant (and for a child) are about 2/3 of the Adult fares under the same fare codes (the entire booking code matches, not just the initial booking class letter). So yes, they are different.

Not sure if that's true for all airlines, all routes, all fare types -- but here it seems to be true...

joshwex90

Just curious what dates/routing you're looking at. Because I tried a couple of date options, but all LY for TLV-NYC r/t

salut0

LON-TLV-LON

I'd prefer not to give specific dates but I suspect the fares I found on ITA Matrix are valid throughout the schedule.

joshwex90

So maybe try giving the info to a travel agent instead of booking through LY. They may also be able to help regarding bulkhead