gp603

I am traveling internationally with wife, lap infant and myself. My wife is on a first class award ticket (on two class plane). I am upgraded to first from coach (confirmed at time of purchase).

It is my understanding that the lap infant ticket price is 10% of the adult ticket price. Should the 10% be taken from my coach ticket price or should the 10% be taken from the price of a full fare first class ticket? The later is what UA did.

mahasamatman

Not much of an upgrade...

If the infant is traveling on your ticket, I would assume it should be 10% of the full fare Coach fare, but the upgrade could easily mess that up.

tods27

I remember seeing posts that it is 10% of the class that you actually travel in, thus if you get the upgrade, then it is 10% of the F fare. It's one of the big downsides to upgrading with a lap child, especially when upgrading to C on an int'l itin.

wrkn4alivn

IME we have always paid 10% of the fare purchased. With the whole family on award seats except me, my SWU cleared SFO-PEK and I still paid 10% of the W (economy) fare for the baby. (Of course I sat in E+ with the baby and my wife took the C seat.) If ticket or gate agent disagrees with you, get a supervisor as I am pretty sure about this one.

For an award ticket, the infant fare is 10% of the full fare for the cabin so we have only done this once as it gets quite expensive on transpac flights ($500 for the "privilege" of having a baby on your lap?).

nnn

Others said on this thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...el-infant.html that they paid only 10% of the ticketed cabin, not the upgraded cabin.

So it sounds like you were probably charged too much. If I were you, I would keep calling back until they refund the difference.

gp603

Thank you for the advice. I will see what UA will do.

XX38

We just went through this. The bottom line is you are supposed to have your child ticketed in the cabin you are flying. Hence F in your case... altough I'm confused you mention "international travel" and then say you upgraded from Y to F... are you sure not Y to C?
Anyhow the thing is that 95% of UA employees at the gate don't notice (or don't care) (I was told by a UA employee) what cabin your infant is ticketed in. And in the unlikely case they notice, your downside is just having to pay what you were supposed to pay in the first place (10% of full fare). So my point is there is no real downside to having him/her ticketed in Y.
Good luck.

gp603

I am definitely sure it is not Y->C upgrade. That would be better than domestic F. I am flying internationally within region 1 on a domestic, 2 class plane.

I wonder if the ticketing for the infant makes a difference if the upgrade is confirmed at time of booking (and payment).

6rugrats

Just curious as I have no infants; if OP has been upgraded out of Y, can a his/her lap child then be ticketed in Y??

thesilb

I have been through this several times and was always charged 10% of the price for the cabin in which we actually flew, regardless of how we got into that cabin (upgrade, full award, fully paid). I think 10% of the F fare is the correct implementation of the rule here.

By the way, this is the same result on all other carriers we have traveled on with lap infants in business or first (which has been a lot of carriers for us).

mobilebucky

I have nothing to add, but I am just curious to know where are you going that UA fly 2 class plane to Region 2?

I do agree the lap child should pay 10% of your booking class fare not your actual seating class.

cepheid

The OP explicitly said "within Region 1." That suggests Mexico or Canada (those being the only two international destinations that I can think of within Region 1). AFAIK, UA flies 2-class planes to both destinations.

colourmix

In Nov 2008, we flew SFO-LAX-NRT-SIN-NRT-SFO with our year-old son, H fares (HL9MIN) booked through a travel agent, upgrades waitlisted at time of booking.

Before we booked, I'd looked through the other threads and was under the impression that we'd need to buy the infant C fare. Our TA recommended that we buy the infant H fare, since the upgrades had not cleared, so that's what we did (HL9MININ)

All upgrades except NRT-SIN cleared a month before flying, so I called UA to ask about the infant fare - was told by the CSR that the existing fare was correct. At this point, I was a bit concerned, given that there have been many reports on FT about the certitude of needing an infant C fare. So I hung up and called again. Got the same reply. I was a GM at the time - not sure if the 2P/1P/1K lines would have given different info.

Outbound trip was fine - no issues at SFO or LAX. At NRT, the final upgrade came through. Again, no questions raised by the agent who issued the new boarding passes.

One of the other threads also talks about how the SIN agents are sticklers for the rule, and one poster described how he/she was charged the extra fee on check in at SIN, not only for the return flight he/she was about to take, but retroactively for the onward flight into SIN also.

So for the return flight, I had my visa card ready. But no alarms went off in Changi terminal 3 that morning.

So I'd say YMMV, but be prepared to pay the extra - it might come down to the checkin agent. Also, one could point out the absurdity of buying an expensive infant C fare in advance when your upgrades have not cleared.

On a different note, UA docked me 30k for upgrading Y->C with infant in lap on JFK-SFO p.s. They readily corrected that when we sought a clarification.

IAD777

We were also quoted a 10% lap infant fare on a transatlantic award ticket in C. The fare was 10% of the full C fare. The agent also confirmed that the lap infant fare was refundable without a service charge.

On a related question, can you order a special meal or request a regular for the lap infant? If you have a separate ticket and are paying 10% of the fare (which is not trivial on a C ticket), it seems reasonable that one could request an additional meal, especially if the infant is closer to 2 years old.

noah

I think this makes the difference. If you buy the infant a ticket when you book your ticket, it is done at your fare (10%). If you wait until check-in they'll charge you based on where you are sitting.

OP, where did you buy the infant ticket?