Maybe so, but why shouldn't it be the norm? I understand FAA requires children over 2 to have a seat. That doesn't mean the airlines need to make it an opportunity to make extra money. At least charge half the adult r/t fare for the return leg of the infant that just turned 2! Wouldn't that be simple and fair? But no...

We visit family in Europe every year, so when this happened to us last year, I bought a r/t for our son that put him out of sync with our tickets. United was "gracious" enough to give me a whopping 25% infant discount. Today, I was hassled by a CS supervisor who insisted I buy a o/w. She told me I could not buy a r/t for my son, because a child under 11 had to travel with an adult. She knew we had an return leg left for us, and he'd travel with us. She was insistent even when I told her we'd either throw away my son's return or get tickets to travel with him at a later date.

So, my choices were to buy a o/w at more than 2x the r/t or buy us another set of tickets for a potential future travel date to visit family in Europe again. All options were win for United and lose for us.

If anyone has suggestions on where to go with complaints, please let me know. Meanwhile, I plan to find another airline for future flights!