taxmanpat

Looking for some "expert" commentary and advice on the following situation:

On July 5th, my family and I will be travelling PLS-MIA-YUL.

I booked my wife and two older kids (10 and 8) in Business class using reward miles.

I booked myself in Y and asked for an upgrade on both legs, which I am fairly confidant to get, since those routes are not ultra busy at that time of year

We also have an 11-month old travelling with us as a lap child. Since we are now about two weeks away, I need to call AA and inform them. Since PLS is "international" as far as lap children are concerned (love AA's ever changing definition of "international" BTW) he will get his own record locator and we will pay a fare (probably 10% of my ticket value) and some taxes.

The question is: Is it better to add him as a lap child on my "Y" ticket or on my wife's Reward Business class ticket? I want the lowest fare, of course, and I suspect from previous experience that that would be on my ticket. However, I do not want to lower my chances of upgrading and am wondering if the lap child would have an impact on that? If getting the upgrade meant paying a few more dollars for the lap child, I would probably do that.

I've done this three times in the last year (our youngest is certainly going to be the youngest million miler ever!) with differing responses from AA on all three occasions.

So now, I turn to the real experts!

TWA884

Buy the baby a seat, he'll be much safer. It's almost impossible for an adult to keep a lap child safe during a rough landing, turbulence or an emergency landing. The child is likely be tossed around the cabin or be crushed between the adult and the seat in front.

No child left unbuckled

What You Need to Know about the Lap Child

emma dog

-If you have your baby assigned to Business, you will pay 10% of full fare business.

-I'm not sure what happens in cases of upgrade. You'll pay 10% of what you paid for Y. Not sure if there is a differential to be paid.

taxmanpat

Anyone know if the additional child has an impact on upgrade clearance?

FWAAA

Lap infant fare for international (when lap infants are not free) is always 10% of a fare in the cabin in which the lap infant sits. Nobody really knows which business class fare - only that it's 10% of one of them.

bdemaria

No, the OP would have to pay 10% of the fee for the cabin in which the child actually flies, here's one of many lengthy threads on the subject <redacted circular link post-merge>. It doesn't matter whether it is an award or upgraded ticket.

To the OP: I can't imagine that adding the infant to your PNR will change your place on the waitlist but I must admit I'm curious about the following statement: "Since we are now about two weeks away, I need to call AA and inform them" about the child.

emma dog

They shouldn't. It's all based on your status, time of request, etc. All the usual stuff.

taxmanpat

Perhaps a strange choice of words on my part.

I simply meant that you can't book a lap child online so I didn't do it when I bought the tickets. However, I don't want to just show up at the airport so I will call AA ahead of time and go to their (very small) office here and pay ahead of time and get his ticket. I could have done it before, but I have been busy!

3Cforme

IIRC, AA charges 10% of the applicable fare for infants in the traveled class of service - not necessarily 10% of the full Y or J fare. A delay may have cost you.

DFWsakp

Anyway, to answer OP's question: I was in an exact same situation 2 weeks ago. I travelled to Mexico with my family (a Lap child, 6 yr old kid and wife). I had booked my wife's and 6 yr old's ticket in First Class using miles. I had booked my ticket in Coach and used my EXP status to upgrade my ticket. The Lap child was attached to my ticket and I paid 10% of my coach fare + Taxes for my lapchild. I got upgraded to First Class, 2 days before departure.

The Gate Agent did not collect any additional fare. Same thing on the return. I was upgraded to First Class and we all 4 travelled in First Class Cabin without any problem.

Thus my advice to OP:
1. Book a Lapchild ticket for your kid asap, before you get upgraded. That way you will only pay 10% of the coach fare and not 10% of First/Business.
2. From my personal experience, you will not have any issues getting upgraded. I got upgraded twice and so can safely say the same.

taxmanpat

Thanks for that, best reply I've seen so far. It is consistent with my experience as well as far as pricing goes, but I've never done the upgrade part with the child.

farrish11

I have never paid a differential/surcharge on the lap child ticket for my son when upgraded. My 12 month old son has flown 12 segments with me (Gold) between MIA and YYZ, all as a lap child, all purchased in discount Y (son's tickets have usually cost $10-20 r/t). I have been upgraded to business 6 of those 12 times, sometimes at the 24 hour mark, sometimes at check-in, sometimes at the gate.

ktakahashi

As to the OP's original question and the subsequent conversation, I recall there being 4 types of lap tickets in terms of pricing structure. The first is domestic flights - no charges here whatsoever (including upgrades). The second is flight in/out of Canada - I recall a $10-15 range tax RT (upgrades made no impact). The third is flights in/out of the Carribean - I recall a $30-50 range tax RT (upgrade no impact). The last being a truly international flight (TATL,TPAC, etc.) - I recall it is 10% of the base fare and the full taxes associcated to the ticketed cabin in which the lap child is seated (in other words, budget more than 10%). If you upgrade this type of flight (eVIP/SWU or miles), the lap fare would be recalculated (repriced) to the same 10% base plus full taxes at the time of upgrade clearing.

I would think that PLS would be considered in the Carribean category but as the OP notes, geographic labels for AA is clearly and art and not a science. The twist here is that the OP has both a Carribean trip and a Canadian trip all in one - I wonder what this would yield. Not to repeat the typical FT line here - but I would call to see what would happen here. No need to explain the award tickets ... just mention you and the lap and get it priced out. Again, my gut tells me the Carribean category I listed above but I have been know to be wrong.

hillrider

Firstly, MIA-YYZ is zero fare for INF; you only pay taxes and fees, and they are the same in Y and J.

Secondly, YMMV. My personal experience was with my very first non-"United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mexico and most of the Caribbean" flight with an INF. I upgraded a round trip to Europe and the EXP agent on the phone said that the infant ticket was good as it was. I knew nothing more and accepted what she said at face value.

I had no problems on the outbound, but at the inbound connecting from BA at LHR, the AA agent refused to check us in unless I forked over close to $1k for the INF "upgrade". After lots of arguing about what I was told and the fact that AA had already accepted the ticket as valid on the outbound segments, I had to fork over the money (but signed the credit card slip with an "under duress" notation), and upon return I promptly asked AA for a refund.

AA refused the refund, citing a non-publicly available rule that the INF needs to be ticketed IN THE CABIN he/she is traveling in, and, in effect, the Congress-approved practice that any an airline employee can lie to you with impunity (the EXP agent who told me that the INF ticket was fine as it was as I upgraded myself and spouse). After some back-and forth, I ended up having to prepare a filing for a small claims lawsuit, knowing that a judge would not agree that I had to be the one to shoulder the cost of the agent giving me incorrect information. Only then did AA give me -- hear this -- not a refund, but some BS one-time "customer service" check which, wow, was for the same exact amount. And not even an apology for the lying or the awful treatment, which included having my spouse sit on the floor of the crowded transfer hall for 55 minutes with a 7 weeks old while I dealt with the ticketing idiocy. I was EXP at the time and had been top-tier elite member since 1989.

Overall, a frustratingly awful AA customer relations experience to the max, which to this date it still colors my view of AA "service" (and therefore many of my posts about the airline and the lack of legal rights for passengers).

The incident did lead to the creation of the wiki entry for the benefits of other FTers. I believe that that article is still the only source of tariff information about AA infant policies as AA.com is severely lacking and American's complete tariffs are still not published on the web (thank you Congress and DOT).

taxmanpat

47$, being a no-fare taxes only cost on my Y ticket. We'll see about the upgrade.

This is different from last month's PLS-MIA-LAS where we paid around 80$. Difference in taxes or fare, I don't know. I think whoever said YMMV was spot on.