Lifemiles and infant tickets
Feb 9, 2022, 11:22 am
#31
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 197
Just as an update, I was never able to get my issue resolved. Tried HUCA Austrian multiple times, different offices around the word, and never was able to get them to agree to purchase a lap infant ticket. Contacted a couple different travel agents, and ended up using one connected with Frosch, I explained the situation and they did a little bit of work seeing if they could resolve the issue from their end. They were not able to and also tried reaching out to Austrian and Avianca, who both refused to budge.
After this, I decided to just rebook one ticket of my reservation (I originally had 4 tickets booked) through a different program, namely Air Canada. At this point, no Business seats (I) were shown as available for booking. I called LM, cancelled one ticket, paid the $200 cancellation fee, and got the LM back in my account instantly. As soon as I cancelled, EF immediately showed up to 9 (I) tickets available for booking. I transferred over some miles to Air Canada, and was able to easily book a ticket for one adult and one lap infant. The lap infant cost an extra 2500 miles.
So I managed to achieve what I needed, just in a very roundabout and frustrating way. I will use this as a lesson to never use LM to book something I want to add a lap infant to. It is just not worth the frustration in my experience.
After this, I decided to just rebook one ticket of my reservation (I originally had 4 tickets booked) through a different program, namely Air Canada. At this point, no Business seats (I) were shown as available for booking. I called LM, cancelled one ticket, paid the $200 cancellation fee, and got the LM back in my account instantly. As soon as I cancelled, EF immediately showed up to 9 (I) tickets available for booking. I transferred over some miles to Air Canada, and was able to easily book a ticket for one adult and one lap infant. The lap infant cost an extra 2500 miles.
So I managed to achieve what I needed, just in a very roundabout and frustrating way. I will use this as a lesson to never use LM to book something I want to add a lap infant to. It is just not worth the frustration in my experience.
Feb 15, 2022, 7:34 am
#32
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If some LH (or other Star Alliance carriers' agents) won't do a lap-child eticket over the phone when the first flight on the adult tickets is operated by them, then I would have the lap-child ticketing done at the airport (or perhaps at some other ticketing points) which is the point of origin on the tickets. I've had LH's ground agents/contractors issue lap-child tickets in a mix of countries so the lap-children could travel with the accompanying adults who were booked for LH flights on award tickets issued by AV and a variety of other Star Alliance carriers.
Feb 15, 2022, 7:42 am
#33
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Join Date: Jul 2001
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man I'm with you this ... I even called the australian LH call center like another user suggested but no dice ... its ridiculous how tedious this has become. Does anyone know if I can simply pay for an infant ticket @ the airport? Also acesh1gh have you tried a travel agent? some people mentioned a travel agent ... perhaps if they can share the contact of the travel agent then its less explaining to do as the travel agent should recall the magic words and more $$$ for him/her
I've had LH's airport ticketing/ground handling agents do this at airports.
Even as lap-child ticketing may be done at the airport, keep in mind that the hours and availability of staff at airports to do this thing can cause frustration at times. Even if that is not the issue, keep in minds that available agents may struggle at times with figuring out how to price and issue the lap-child tickets -- that is something that can really eat into how long it takes to get the ticket issued (if the lap-child ticket is even issued on time to make check-in cut-off time).
Feb 15, 2022, 5:23 pm
#34
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 197
I've had UA do this at airports for LH flights when the first flight of the trips were UA flights connecting onto LH flights.
I've had LH's airport ticketing/ground handling agents do this at airports.
Even as lap-child ticketing may be done at the airport, keep in mind that the hours and availability of staff at airports to do this thing can cause frustration at times. Even if that is not the issue, keep in minds that available agents may struggle at times with figuring out how to price and issue the lap-child tickets -- that is something that can really eat into how long it takes to get the ticket issued (if the lap-child ticket is even issued on time to make check-in cut-off time).
I've had LH's airport ticketing/ground handling agents do this at airports.
Even as lap-child ticketing may be done at the airport, keep in mind that the hours and availability of staff at airports to do this thing can cause frustration at times. Even if that is not the issue, keep in minds that available agents may struggle at times with figuring out how to price and issue the lap-child tickets -- that is something that can really eat into how long it takes to get the ticket issued (if the lap-child ticket is even issued on time to make check-in cut-off time).
Mar 21, 2022, 5:08 pm
#36
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 6
Adding infant
On the phone with Miles and More - CS. Just as an aside - for all my problems with AV bookings over the last 2 years (lots of LH cancelations and flight changes) LH MM CS has been able to handle all of them. AV Life miles CS has not done a single thing. Don't even bother.
For a Economy class booking DEN-MUC I was only changed $5.60 in taxes or fees to add the infant. LH handled it just fine.
For a Economy class booking DEN-MUC I was only changed $5.60 in taxes or fees to add the infant. LH handled it just fine.
Feb 19, 2023, 6:56 pm
#37
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 39
Going through this and kinda give up. Avianca says it's booked through LM so they can't do it . LM says they can't deal with Infant tickets on AWard. Both Copa and Turkish said they can't issue a new ticket for infant without Adult and can't touch even the current reservation
Jun 4, 2023, 10:13 pm
#39
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: San Diego, CA
Programs: UA Silver/Marriott Gold/Hilton Gold
Posts: 540
Was just able to add an infant ticket via UA call center for a UA/LH itinerary booked via Lifemiles. Took me a bit of being persuasive with the agent that they indeed would need to issue the ticket, and the first price they came back with was over $1,000, but I pushed back and said I think it should be $256.xx (you can look up how an infant ticket will price via ITA Matrix). He called the pricing desk and they came back with that exact price so I was good to go.
Now only thing I'm wondering is how I would handle the lap infant ticket if we decided to change our routing (hoping to get a direct flight). I heard some people say it's 10% of the cost of a normal change, but not sure.
Now only thing I'm wondering is how I would handle the lap infant ticket if we decided to change our routing (hoping to get a direct flight). I heard some people say it's 10% of the cost of a normal change, but not sure.
Jun 5, 2023, 6:21 am
#40
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Watchlisted by the prejudiced, en route to purgatory
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Posts: 102,095
Just as an update, I was never able to get my issue resolved. Tried HUCA Austrian multiple times, different offices around the word, and never was able to get them to agree to purchase a lap infant ticket. Contacted a couple different travel agents, and ended up using one connected with Frosch, I explained the situation and they did a little bit of work seeing if they could resolve the issue from their end. They were not able to and also tried reaching out to Austrian and Avianca, who both refused to budge.
After this, I decided to just rebook one ticket of my reservation (I originally had 4 tickets booked) through a different program, namely Air Canada. At this point, no Business seats (I) were shown as available for booking. I called LM, cancelled one ticket, paid the $200 cancellation fee, and got the LM back in my account instantly. As soon as I cancelled, EF immediately showed up to 9 (I) tickets available for booking. I transferred over some miles to Air Canada, and was able to easily book a ticket for one adult and one lap infant. The lap infant cost an extra 2500 miles.
So I managed to achieve what I needed, just in a very roundabout and frustrating way. I will use this as a lesson to never use LM to book something I want to add a lap infant to. It is just not worth the frustration in my experience.
After this, I decided to just rebook one ticket of my reservation (I originally had 4 tickets booked) through a different program, namely Air Canada. At this point, no Business seats (I) were shown as available for booking. I called LM, cancelled one ticket, paid the $200 cancellation fee, and got the LM back in my account instantly. As soon as I cancelled, EF immediately showed up to 9 (I) tickets available for booking. I transferred over some miles to Air Canada, and was able to easily book a ticket for one adult and one lap infant. The lap infant cost an extra 2500 miles.
So I managed to achieve what I needed, just in a very roundabout and frustrating way. I will use this as a lesson to never use LM to book something I want to add a lap infant to. It is just not worth the frustration in my experience.
Done it a lot. It's not all that bad -- at least not always. And the infant need not even be at the airport to get it done at the airports before check-in and/or day of travel.
Jun 7, 2023, 7:52 am
#41
Join Date: Oct 2018
Posts: 9
I always assumed this was the most expensive route to go. Although I assume it’s possibly the simplest! What were your experiences?
Jun 7, 2023, 8:24 am
#42
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Watchlisted by the prejudiced, en route to purgatory
Programs: Just Say No to Fleecing and Blacklisting
Posts: 102,095
Sometimes it’s been the cheapest or only way to get it done for the circumstances of relevance to my travel party members at the time. But some airports are worse than others for trying to get this done. Nicer to get it done over the phone when possible, but not when being quoted a much higher price on the phone calls than at the airports.
Jul 27, 2023, 5:21 pm
#43
Join Date: Jul 2023
Posts: 1
I just went through this long, excruciating process to add infant to our LH itinerary booked through LifeMiles. Sharing my experience here, hope that helps others in the same situation -
1. After following advice from so many of you, call Lufthansa US (+1 800-645-3880) and emphasize to Purchase a ticket for our infant and add to our reservation. They kept saying since the ticket has been issued by Avianca (LifeMiles), they can't touch the ticket. No matter how patiently I pushed, they just wouldn't budge on this, finally they connected me to their "Miles & More" team who took all the details for our son but in the end, said the same thing that we had to call Avianca.
2. Call Avianca (+1 800-284-2622 Option 2 (English), 3 (LifeMiles), 3 (Manage Reservations)). I explained that while making the booking, I was asked to call the service center to add the infant to our booking. After a couple of transfers, finally got someone knowledgable who was eager to help. He took all the details, repeated names, DoB, email addresses twice and proceeded with "Manual booking" for our son, walking me through the process the entire time.
3. Few mins later I received an email from [email protected] with the updated booking, the agent asked me to confirm all the details before proceeding with the payment.
4. After confirming the details, got another email with payment request for 10% of the adult fare. Made the payment online and within mins, our existing booking was updated to include the infant both on LifeMiles and Lufthansa websites.
While we had success in the end, I would highly recommend going with other Star Alliance partners like United or Air Canada which make this process easy at the time of booking. Wish you luck!
1. After following advice from so many of you, call Lufthansa US (+1 800-645-3880) and emphasize to Purchase a ticket for our infant and add to our reservation. They kept saying since the ticket has been issued by Avianca (LifeMiles), they can't touch the ticket. No matter how patiently I pushed, they just wouldn't budge on this, finally they connected me to their "Miles & More" team who took all the details for our son but in the end, said the same thing that we had to call Avianca.
2. Call Avianca (+1 800-284-2622 Option 2 (English), 3 (LifeMiles), 3 (Manage Reservations)). I explained that while making the booking, I was asked to call the service center to add the infant to our booking. After a couple of transfers, finally got someone knowledgable who was eager to help. He took all the details, repeated names, DoB, email addresses twice and proceeded with "Manual booking" for our son, walking me through the process the entire time.
3. Few mins later I received an email from [email protected] with the updated booking, the agent asked me to confirm all the details before proceeding with the payment.
4. After confirming the details, got another email with payment request for 10% of the adult fare. Made the payment online and within mins, our existing booking was updated to include the infant both on LifeMiles and Lufthansa websites.
While we had success in the end, I would highly recommend going with other Star Alliance partners like United or Air Canada which make this process easy at the time of booking. Wish you luck!
Aug 18, 2023, 10:15 am
#44
Join Date: Aug 2012
Programs: SPG Platinum, AA Ex Plat
Posts: 262
AVOID booking through Lifemiles if you want to add an infant ticket and keep your sanity at the same time!!! Lufthansa agents are unhelpful especially if its an agent outside of Germany. I spoke to 7 agents and all of them say that only Avianca is able to add the infant seat and obviously Avianca says that they cant do it.
Do yourself a favor and book though Aeroplan and save your sanity
Do yourself a favor and book though Aeroplan and save your sanity