My husband and I try to take 1-2 vacations a year. With a new baby, it's become a lot more difficult to afford anything. My husband's idea was to buy an award ticket for our son, which keeps the airfare cost of a trip the same. The problem is, we also like to use sticker upgrades on these trips, and obviously can't upgrade our child's award ticket.

Is there any creative way to handle this? I'm assuming there isn't, but I'm not an expert. Or if there's another drawback to having a toddler on a separate ticket, I'd like to know that too.

(We like to upgrade on these flights because I am rarely able to use upgrade segments on business travel, which is 99.9% American Eagle and international flights, so they otherwise go unused.)