jhaas2629

My wife and I are considering a trip (Alaska Airlines flights) where we individually have enough miles to cover one leg. We'd also have our daughter with her own seat (toddler) but not booking with miles.

The first thought is we could all book individual tickets and do it in quick succession to get seats together. But I'm not even sure if I could book my daughter's seat because she isn't travelling alone, but wouldn't be associated with one of us since it's her own reservation. Perhaps it would have to be something as clunky as:

Flight 1: dad on own res with miles. mom and daughter on a res pay cash.

Flight 2: mom on own res with miles. dad and daughter on a res pay cash.

Is this something I could call the Reservations line to book in a less convoluted manner? Tried to log in to AAdvantage just now to play around but it seems to be down.

Mr. Vker

I've been in this situation before. Use cash for whomever would benefit the most by earning LP's and miles. Use miles for anyone else. If you and your wife paid cash and your daughter was on miles-she'd be on a different PNR from both adults and that's ok. You just have to call to book hers and there is no booking fee because it can't be done online. They will take care of seats too. You can also put the paid tix on hold for 24 hours while you took care of your daughters so nothing was committed until you called.

jhaas2629

Thanks. If it changes anything, we are not frequent AA flyers and are both just looking to empty our mileage accounts. We used to live in Chicago, but have since moved home to the Detroit area where AA presence is minimal.

Mr. Vker

In that case I'd book your daughter with a parent on miles or points and keep the other parent separate. That way you should be able to do it all online. The only downside is if one of you has status that would get MCE. The separate PNR wouldn't qualify.

guv1976

Keep in mind that the husband can use his miles to book a one-way for the wife, and vice versa.

On some routes, purchasing a roundtrip ticket can be cheaper than purchasing two one-ways. One parent should fly in both directions on miles (assuming that award seats are available); the other parent and the child should fly on cash tickets.

Award tickets can be put on a complimentary hold while the cash tickets are being finalized.

ashill

I was in a similar situation with Alaska a few months ago. AA was not involved, but a few notes:

1) If you’re booking the child’s ticket through alaskaair.com, you can book a minor through the web site. What you do is book the adult first. Then get the Alaska PNR (which you should be able to get from AA if it’s an AAdvantage booking). Then book the child ticket. When you get to the traveler details, it will ask if the child is traveling alone. You can say no, and then it will ask for the AS PNR, allow the child to book, and link the PNRs. (This only works if all of the child’s flights are marketed and operated by AS or Horizon/SkyWest for Alaska. It will be separate but linked PNRs, which works on AS metal but they won’t ticket it that way for any flights involving partner metal.)

2) If you’re booking through Alaska with an itinerary with multiple airlines, you can call and they will book it all on one PNR so the partner airline(s) know the child is traveling with an adult. I did this using Alaska miles from two different accounts for a trip involving Condor and Alaska/Horizon metal; don’t know if it will work with a mix of cash and paid tickets. But this probably isn’t helpful in your case, since you can’t book an AAdvantage ticket through Alaska.

No matter what, assuming you have separate PNRs, pull up the flights on alaskaair.com once booked, and it will allow you to link the reservations so AS knows you’re all traveling together. (This is useful even with adults traveling on separate PNRs on AS.)

Last I tried (years ago), AA.com did not have any of this functionality.