cubigbird

My family and I travel a lot domestically and even internationally. Do you sign your kids up for airline frequent flyer programs? Will airlines even allow you to sign them up since they are under age 18? Is there even any benefit other than mileage accrual?? We all have Global Entry so I could at least have KTNs entered in so it would make future booking easy....

Redhead

Yes, my 18 month old has her own account. She can earn miles. If you fly enough, you can earn upgrades in your kids accounts and use them when you fly together.

aufmatt

El Al and Lufthansa have special kids programmes. KLM and SAS offer regular FF membership from birth.
__________________
2014: AMS BGO BLQ CDG CPH CTS FOE FRA GYD ICN IST JOH KGD KIV LBA LEJ LIS MUC ORD ORK OSL OTP PKC RTM SVO TLV TOF TSR TXL TYO VIE VNO ZRH

Erasmus

Most airlines allow minors to have accounts. Some, like BA, will only do so as part of a family account, although they then allow you to pool miles to redeem tickets. As far as benefits, both of my kids had elite status and were receiving free upgrades before they were 2...

rjque

Of course! My two year old is in her second year of being gold in the AAdvantage program. We've used her miles to cover the cost of her ticket, and now she has some upgrades that we will try to use when we travel with her.

westcoastgal

My daughter has been signed up for Aeroplan since she was 6 months old and took her first flight. Westhet also allows children to be signed up by parents. She's able to sign up for Crown and Anchor cruise rewards as well on Royal Caribbean.
I'd check with your airline rewards and see if you can sign your children up.

dbuckho

Signed my now 4 year old up when he started traveling on paid tickets after turning 2. We fly AA, DL, and WN domestically so signed him up for AS Mileage Plan (to accrue on AA/DL) and for WN Rapid Rewards. He has a little over 20k AS miles and 7k WN points.

If they are flying, you should sign up for a program to get the miles - why let that go to waste? One thing to remember though is if they earn miles on a carrier you do not fly often, put their accounts into your rotation to check expirations. While we do not pay to fly United, UA was our main mileage redemption carrier for years (until the recent devaluation; miles earned via credit card). Since we had credit card activity our account expirations always extended. But in 2012 my son picked up a couple Star Alliance flights in Europe. I forgot about them and the miles expired. Only a few thousand miles, but still a rookie error to let them be taken.

AsiaTraveler

When my son was flying on a paid ticket for the first time, I was bummed to discover that, at least on Delta, you have to fill out a special form and fax/email it in- no way to sign up online. They were speedy about it, but it meant that he was ineligible for the sign up bonus that they were offering...

heraclitus

My son became an Aeroplan member the month he was born!

All of his flights to date have been as a lap child, so no points from flights yet and therefore no status, etc. However, he has benefitted from things like the shop.ca first time customer special and other such one-per-person promos.

The nice thing about Aeroplan is that the points in accounts of minors don't expire until they turn 18 regardless of account activity.

tfly212

Just signed my 7 month old son up for a Delta Skymiles account ahead of his first flight next week. You cannot sign up online though, you need to print out the form and a parental consent document which you email to delta. Less than 12 hour turnaround and he was all set.

swise

Yes, since they were 3 months old. They travel on award tickets a lot, but still, they do earn some points on paid tickets, too.

We also signed them up for Global Entry/Trusted Traveler so that we can go through the precheck line as a family. No need to remove all the bags of babymeds, food pouches, etc, in addition to the usual laptops and shampoo. This has been fabulous for faster ventures through Security. Well worth it.

kawaii

Any advice on what FF plan an infant might benefit from, for being based in HKG? Mrs. kawaii is expecting - we think babykawaii is going to probably fly one or two t-pac RTs a year, and a few regional asia flights, so I'm thinking that maybe I'll just bank the miles with BA/avios (which is where most of my spend is nowadays).

Also, I've read some comments that lap infants don't earn miles. Is this still true if you're paying for the lap infant? I understand that lap infants fly for free domestically, but for international flights, I figure if you're paying for the lap infant, and not getting a seat for it, you should at least be able to earn some miles on it, right?

6rugrats

I don't know why one FF plan would be better than another for an infant. Choose the one that works for your family.

No miles earned for lap infants. You must purchase them their own seat if you want to earn miles.

kawaii

Thanks for the info. The only reason is MPC requires a membership fee so I figure maybe it would be easier to get/maintain status via AA/AC/JL instead of CX MPC (AM is terrible for earn/burn so I figure that's out).

Nick9251

Hello,
bringing back up this tread...
Looking for a *A FFP for an infant <2, most likely with own seat for each segment, I was surprised to see that LH would not allow any sign up until they turn 2.

Based on your contributions, I believe I will advise them to go with Aeroplan but was wondering if there was any way to "bypass" the M&M 2 year threshold that I do not understand ? Or any other nice *A FFP open for a new born!
Thank you!