family with two year old child quest.
 

I was flying from lga to dfw, there was a family with a child boarding right before me, the ga asked how old the child was and they said "two years old", ga: "do you have a ticket for her", they were told that they would have to purchase an extra ticket and were sent to the podium for further "analysis." They ultimately boarded the plane, but were one of the last to do so. [I assume that the price of this last minute ticket would be very high.]
Question: If they didn't have funds to purchase the extra ticket, and since they were not going to abandon the child at the gate:rolleyes:, would they have gotten a refund for their tickets if they chose not to fly?

Appears to me that they were not aware any person 2+ must have a ticket to fly (even if when they started travel they were < 2). If they were aware, they would either have bought a ticket or told the FA they child was 23 months or something similar.

In another thread, someone was asked to produce a birth certificate for their child...I forgot the outcome.

I'm sure there have been many threads like this, but one of them was mine. We were flying Airtran with our (at the time) 4 year old son and 23 month old daughter. We intentionally scheduled the trip before she turned 2 so we wouldn't have to buy a seat for her (when we knew she would want to be in our laps anyway). The counter agent didn't believe us and we didn't have her birth certificate, so she made us buy a ticket (which cost about us much as the other three combined). One flight attendant insisted that we put her in the seat instead of our lap. Then another flight attendant chewed us out and said she could be fired for allowing a 2-year old sit in a seat. We got a refund when we faxed in the birth certificate after we returned, but it was quite a hassle. Now we bring both of the kids' birth certificates everywhere we go.

In answer to the original question, I am not sure they would have got a refund.

It is, afterall, their mistake and not the airline's.