My son is 14 and will turn 15 in January so thankfully this will not effect me for very long but it will probably cause me to book with another airline until the end of the year (my son is Gold on AA). My son has been travelling alone for the last couple of years with no problems at all. He goes to summer camp, boarding school and I travel all over the Carribean for work. He has Global Entry and goes through immigration in Miami or Dallas very regularly. I always book him on the first flight of the morning in case or flight delays or cancellations.

Obviously not all kids have the same experience so it's not fair to compare my child to one that's travelling for the first time or travels once a year. I do think that as a parent I know my child's capacity and should be able to decide. At this point the $300 is offensive and apart from that my child would never forgive me. The last time I paid the UM he told me that the took him to the "baby room" to wait for his connection and all he wanted to do was go buy some food at Wendy's.