Hello,

First time poster... Long time reader... Thank you for all the help over the years.

One of our three children has recently turned 12 and is therefore a Young Adult according to BA's age ranges.

All reward bookings I have attempted online since he has become a Young Adult have failed, despite 3 adults being included in the same booking (as well as 2 other children - 6 passengers in total).

Availability is shown, however when I try to purchase tickets, it says there is a problem and to call.

However, when I change him to be a Child, their system allows the purchase to proceed.

This is particularly unhelpful when booking at midnight/1am, for reasonably-popular school holiday dates/destinations, where phoning isn't required, instead booking quickly online is sufficient to secure availability.

Do I need to call BA to switch the age-type for bookings already made? Do they have a policy for this, when switching between effectively a child of different age? (taxes, passengers duties, etc should be identical, and the name would stay the same).

This must happen all the time... More often children accidentally booked as adults I imagine, where the implications are potentially greater.

My logic has been that worst case, the ticket could be cancelled whilst on a call to BA, and re-booked as a child, then linked - however that risks the reward seat not being released back into the avios pool.

It has also felt like a problem to solve at some point in the next 355 days...

Although, it will be a problem for a decade or so, with 3 children all becoming Young Adults in due course, assuming BA never fix the bug...

Are there any work-arounds to allow bookings for Young Adults (with adults) to take place online? Strangely, I couldn't find any other posts on the subject which is odd, so perhaps this is a nuance of our 3 Adult + 1 Young Adult + 2 Child combo, or similar. Or perhaps everyone else booking with Young Adults just calls...

Is the only reason BA classify 12-15 year olds as Young Adults, so the seating process allows them to sit in Emergency Exit rows? And/or the previous age for solo travel, etc. Or are there other reasons?

Would it be possible for the Young Adult just be checked in and turn up at the airport, without even calling BA to fix the age type? BA already know the Young Adult's DOB from the Friends and Family list (not a Household account for increased flexibility) with their associated Exec club number, and allowed the booking to take place as a Child.

Doing nothing each time is of course highly preferred, as it would save an enormous amount of time on the phone changing existing bookings, as well as removing the need to call every time for all future bookings (either at midnight/1am, which is particularly inconvenient, or after the fact to change it somehow).

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

G