flying with infant
 

I'm planning a short trip with my son when he's almost 8 months old (yyz to msp). I'm planning to redeem points for my ticket. If he's in my lap, does it cost me any points? Is the 5000 points I see mentioned for him to get his own seat? Also, what will the baggage allowance be as I'll have a lot of his stuff to bring (stroller, etc)?

Thanks

The 5k points is for him to travel on your lap. For a seat you'll need to spend more.;)
AFAIK you still get the stroller+car seat+1 checked bag for the infant plus your personal luggage allowance whatever that is.

Travelled on points from YVR to YEG a while back. Daughter was 3 months old. No points were charged at all, and they gave us a stroller. YMMV though.

We travelled many times with infants and have never been charged points for sitting on the lap. I don't recall that the policy has changed for lap infants.

Generally airlines let you check in a stroller free of charge. You can have an extra carryon plus diaper bag for the infant free of charge as well. When checking bags, and one bag (or two) is available to be checked per individual), the infant would count as an individual, and you can check a bag for the infant.

We usually try and pack with the least amount of suitcases as possible. Even if you're allowed all of these bags and carryons on flight, its an enormous haul from luggage pickup to rental cars/pick up. My wife is pushing the stroller, and I've got 2 car seats on top of 10 bags on one cart, its an enormous feat to push the bags and car seats to where we need to go.

Infants travel for free (on lap) on domestic flights.

For international flights, you have to pay a small amount + taxes, or points (was 5000 the last time we did it a couple years ago).

If you want a seat, you have to pay for it. In some fares you might pay 75% of the adult fare (child fares).

Regarding baggage, you have to check the airline policies for those routes, as they change. Allowance is usually similar to that of an adult. Check also whether strollers and car seats are counted or not.

The useful thing to do with the stroller is to "gate-check" it. In that case you leave it at the door of the aircraft and they give it back to you when you deplane, not counting towards the baggage allowance.

flying with infant
 

I flew on a reward to LAS last year with my infant daughter sitting in my lap. I didn't have to pay any additional AE miles and only had to pay for the taxes which was less than $20. I booked a reward to YYC a little while ago and didn't have to pay anything to have my daughter sit on my lap.

Correct...gate check the stroller.
You only have to pay on International flights. It's $100 and I spend it. Waste of points. No charge in N.A. I've traveled with my 4mth old Daughter on 4 flights so far. This summer she is flying to France with us.

$100 or 10,000 points to book an infant on points int'l.

Is there a charge to take an infant to the US?
Book for the adult only and phone in to AC later to add the infant.

$100. International... No charge when flying to US. Yes you can add on anytime before departure.

This thread provoked me to revisit the baggage policy section of aircanada.com: http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelin...e/checked.html

I seemed to recall that a car seat, even if not being used in the aircraft cabin, was allowed without being counted as checked luggage. Now it appears not. The website now has you enter your route - in my case we're flying YYT-LHR in the summer with an infant and a four year old - and details allowances per traveller. For the kids 1 piece of checked baggage plus the stroller is it. For us we'll be travelling with a stroller and two car seats. So the car seats use the kids checked luggage allowance & actual suitcases will have to come from mine and Mrs AX's allowance it seems. Fortunately as E75k I get three pieces so thats four between us which should suffice.

But it looks like the only way to get the car seat as "free" allowance is to take it on the plane for the child to sit in?

EDIT:

Upon further reading of AC website I note that the charge for the second bag for kids is $70 but "The fee is waived if the item is a child's car seat." So that looks like my kids get stroller+car seat+checked bag then?

You could also attach the car seat to your stroller frame so that it goes to the door and gets gate checked (AC says they need to be umbrella types but nobody seems to care). When you get to the gate you can ask the agent if there are any empty seats on the flight - if so you have your car seat ready to use. Just be ready to gate check or luggage check it if needed.

Fully Agree. This is what we do.

Unfortunately we don't have the type of car seat that clips into a stroller frame, we have two seperate things. So don't think that will work.

That's why god invented duct tape...

I booked online the age 2 plus seats at aeroplan and then call in the infant for their ticket when doing this to the USA. Keep proof, I have had problems with Non Air Canada check in staff in places like Alaska.