beckoa

Glad you got it ticketed. And thanks for the update.

Imagine AS has little incentive to work something out, as a small % of awards are International. An even smaller % of those involve a lap infant as well...

mdmclean88

Tried using AS miles to book QF award. 2 adults and lap infant added when booking DFW-SYD-BNE on AS. (DFW-SYD in PE and SYD-BNE in Econ). Warnings came up throughout booking saying I will need to call QF after booking to add lap infant, pay fees, possibly 10% of fare, blah blah. So at least they warn you that will be needed.

So I Book as per instructions. I Call QF, they quote me $308 USD base fare plus taxes and fees. DFW-SYD in premium econ then SYD-BNE in econ. I ask where they got $308 from he says it's just the infant fare. I said ya but how did you get that number is it based on Origin-destination or what. He said it's 018 QF stock. Other tix are 027 AS stock. So only way to add infant is I have to buy cash fare and attach 018 QF infant ticket to 027 AS adult.

Seems bonkers to me. Considering QF doesn't charge for infants. Infant isn't taking up any seats. Just accompanying parents.
Tried on chat and agents told me they can't issue ticket. I have to talk to AS. I call AS and they say there is nothing they can do to add infant ticket on their end. She suggests talking to a supervisor at QF. I'm still on QF chat so I tell them this but they say no contact AS.

Eventually I ask really nicely for chat agent to try issuing 018 QF ticket and attach to 027 AS adult. 35 mins later. She says "That'll be $369 AUD thanks". I ask her nicely to double check since it doesn't quite sound right for just an infant in lap charge. Another 30 mins goes by just waiting. Then this

"There will be a USD 291.90 for the ticket of the infant. The reason why the fare if USD 291.90 is that your reservation is booked through Alaskan Airline Classic reward flight, based on the fare rules between airlines we need to book the infant on Qantas Economy fare (Premium Economy class)."

3 hours of back and forth. No idea why the price changed between calls, maybe slight cash fare fluctuation? beats me. Maybe i'm the a**hole here? I get that it's a business, etc etc, it still kinda is a weird feeling that an infant in a lap can incur a charge, but all that aside, Alaska's system has an unfortunate hole it would be awesome at the very least to not have to go through all that.

Hope this clarifies for somebody in the same spot down the road. For the record, QF issue a completely separate record locator which contains an adult (no eticket, just the name) and an infant attached to that adult. And this new record locator and the other QF one booked through AS are linked on the backend.

rustykettel

From the JL award thread from Flying for Fun, reposting here as it would be of interest to booking on any partner award:

Quote:

Lap infant ticketing: We are no longer able to guarantee that lap infants will be accepted with your international partner award ticket.
Until further notice, Mileage Plan members will need to book seats for infants at the standard mileage rate on international partner award bookings. For travel wholly within the US, or wholly on Alaska Airlines, standard lap infant policies apply.

Flying for Fun

Thank you @Rustykettel. I just happened to notice the information today when looking at partner awards.

James

moeykang

I wonder if there has been any updates on this or will the partner refuse to issue a lap child ticket on carrier stock.

moeykang

Just wanted to come back with one data point. It is true that Alaska will not budge and even escalating the phone call won't get you anywhere... It was for JAL. So I managed to convince the JAL agent to book an infant ticket, but it has a separate confirmation number and is linked in their system. So, in theory, you can't have infant lap travel on partner travel issued by Alaska, but in practice YMMV.

eponymous_coward

It sounds like "We are no longer able to guarantee that lap infants will be accepted with your international partner award ticket" is still the case because Alaska will not issue a ticket. The partner airline might allow it, but the partner is issuing the ticket if so (and it's entirely up to them).

moeykang

With a big stress on the MIGHT!!!

mattime

I don't believe anything has changed in policy or practice since the time of the OP. Alaska has never ticketed a lap infant for me. Their own seat, sure. But, other people have? You may select you have a lap infant while booking, but it's only to provide prompt instructions. Instead of telling you to call the partner to book the lap infant in certain terms, they put that "no longer able to guarantee" language in there now. I wonder if CS teams with the newer partners like Finnair don't know how to ticket them properly. Even the older partners have problems, resulting in long hold times, but there's a manager somewhere that can pull a number out of their rear and ticket you.

One a related note, if they can walk get a seat for them on 6+ hr flights. I thought it was cool my kids flew free for a couple years. Nope. After 1-year I couldn't contain their squirrely souls in my seat.

MasterGeek

nevermind

MasterGeek

Alaska is being lazy/stingy and should get its act together, improve their software and IT in order to be able to ticket lap infant.

As a comparison, Etihad was able to ticket my daughter as a lap infant on redemptions for Royal Air Maroc and Virgin Australia flights!

BA Avios can ticket infants online even for partner award flights

ffman999

CDKing

The issues is AS doesn't have the ability to issue revenue tickets for TPAC/TATL flights. That is slowly changing as AS can sell limited Qantas routes on AS ticket stock. Perhaps things will change when AS moves to Amadeus.

MasterGeek

CDKing

I see what you mean, maybe AS doesn't want to offer discounted lap child awards? Does the US competition offer them? I'm sure it doesn't matter to AS what a handful of international carriers offer.