Just booked an LAX-JFK-LHR-DEL in biz/upper class using Skymiles. I also requested an infant in lap ticket. Took the rate desk (or whatever they are called) more than 70 minutes to price it. Was quoted $408 (tix) + $30 (fees). They took my card number and told me that the paper ticket will be mailed in next two weeks and that my card will be charged around the same time.

Does it really take that long? I am afraid that they are going to come back and say sorry it's going to cost $1K instead of $430 and at that point I won't be able to cancel the adult ticket either w/o redeposit fees.

Wow, they still issue paper tickets? Assuming you booked this on the DL website, you should be able to see your itin online. Might want to call back and confirm this, especially if you can't see this on the site.

International infants do use paper tickets.

My understanding is that DL can handle e-ticket for the infant-in-arms (when required for international trips), but some others can not. And I assume the pax is not on all DL metal.

Is kind of bizare that such tech still does not exist.

OP: I assume it will not take two full weeks, just a CYA. I would also not be that worried about the cost. It is something like 10% of full fare, so they can not say the cheap fare is not available.

EDIT: On second thought, perhaps they send it by Pony Express and it will take 2 weeks to get to the west coast. You might want to send them a telegraph and confirm :-)

So how do paper tickets actually work nowdays? Like you have to turn in the ticket when you check in? If you lose the ticket you're out of luck?

Give the paper ticket to the gate agent when boarding. If you lose the paper ticket, you're out of luck. Boarding pass indicates that a paper ticket is needed with the large phrase "flt coupon required"

The paper ticket gets mailed somewhere.

Not in my experience a few years back on sq, cx and prob a couple other airlines..

Infants use paper tickets, as well as diapers.

I look forward to the "enhancement" to cloth tickets.

Yep...the settlement house was/is in ELP.

Shouldn't flll J/C LAX-JFK-LHR-DEL cost more than $4080? Regardless of whether the OP is flying OW or RT? If it's a RT, to me this looks more like a Z fare.

I've just finished my last infant ticket with Delta a few weeks ago (youngest turns 2 in July) and it has never been easy either for myself booking or agents processing. Paper tickets are a joke - I know of no other TATL airline that still does paper tickets - VS, KL, AF all do e-tickets at the time of booking. To compound matters Delta will not mail paper tickets to an international address so if you're based internationally (like me) you have to buy at the airport. This introduces a whole extra level of pain. In five years of infant ticketing I've never met a check-in agent that had anything positive to say about the process. Add 45-60 minutes to your schedule to wait at the ticket counter if you have a good agent.

My advice is to get the infant ticket number or PNR when you book. This will lock in the price and you shouldn't have any issues if the ticket isn't processed for a couple of weeks. It should be 10% of the lowest available fair in your cabin so there is some incentive to booking early.

Frankly, I'm not sure there are enough folks doing infant tickets to raise a big enough stink to get anything changed. It's a bad system and has been for some time.

Like many DL problems, part of the situation is an IT issue.

I added an infant ticket to our July int'l award ticket back in mid-May, spent a lot of time on the phone with the agent and don't remember hearing anything about a paper ticket but just saw the charge as pending today so I'll be sure to keep an eye on the mailbox. The charge was as quoted though (actually a little less) so I'd say you can presume the price may not change too much.

This is the Delta forum.