newyorklondon

Is the child an infant in arms? That sounds like you've been charged DL's standard rate of 10% of the full adult cash fare. Which would only apply if you're using DL SkyMiles.

Assuming you are using VS miles, a quick call to VS should sort it out (should be 10k miles r/t plus minimal TFC for an infant on a reward booking).

jacksu620

No, she was getting her own seat. I called it in and they did it fine no problem. Weird that online it was so much more in fees for a 2 year old vs. an adult.

newyorklondon

Airline IT, what can I say?! I'm glad it worked out. I think I saw this on NH SFO-NRT, using VS miles, when trying to work out whether infant-in-arms in F was better than our son having his own seat in J. So it strikes me as a VS issue, not a partner issue.

Unless it's a no brainer, nowadays I tend to call in for partner reward redemptions. And then - call me nuts - double check with the partner airline just before travel, especially where kids are involved.

In another thread, I mentioned our infant-in-arms booking on NH metal with VS miles had somehow got 'orphaned' (booked on a different date) from the adult booking when I changed the dates of the return leg. It was only in a casual call to NH to confirm seats that this issue was discovered.

flyerguy68

Thought I would relate my dire experience trying to book a partner flight with VS miles Melbourne to NZ over the past few days.

Initially tried to book two economy on Singapore from Melbourne to Wellington - despite seeing availability and holding the seats, they couldn't book because they aren't "allowed" to book SQ reward flights between Oz and NZ. Was promised a call back while they checked what to do, but never got one. When I called two days later, was told they could not book it as it was not allowed, and they cancelled the held booking.

Next up, a few days later, tried to book two economy Melbourne to Auckland on Air NZ. Award seats showed on all Star alliance partners, but Virgin couldn't see the seats. HUCA, they could see seats but only two days earlier, I said to go for those, but they couldn't book due to some system issue. Was promised they would create the booking and that I would get a call back within 30 mins. Never got the call back. When I tried calling again a few hours later, no booking had been made or put on hold, and the award seats had gone by that stage.

HOPELESS.

newyorklondon

That sounds pretty bad. For what it's worth, my positive experiences booking redemptions on partner airlines using VS miles have been (In order of ease): DL, NH, CA // SA, SQ, NZ. There is a dramatic drop in availability and ease of booking - in my experience - between the first three and latter three airlines in my list.

CosmicGirl

If you consider DL the easiest could you please point me in the right direction to find partner availability on DL? The route I'm looking for cannot be booked on the VS website and when I called the FC agent said she could not see availability for that flight in any class for any dates. I don't think she was very experienced as she asked me to spell out airport codes, so I'm not sure she was doing the search correctly but still. It would be a great help if I knew which dates are supposed to be available before calling.

newyorklondon

Can you give me an example of the type of route you're looking at?

CosmicGirl

I'm looking for MCO-AMS or vv, more specifically DL126/127 (changing to DL410/411 come Winter season).

newyorklondon

EDIT: ignore this post, and head to my subsequent posts. There is a work-around.

I believe that specific route is not available to be booked at all using VS miles. I'm not sure why, but I do know certain DL routes are not available for reward redemption using VS miles. AFAIK, MCO-AMS is one of them, and the agent should know that.

In this instance, it's a new route, and I wonder if DL is trying to protect its relationship with KLM, as AMS is a major continental hub for them.

I'd be delighted if I'm wrong, though! Perhaps someone else on here has had a success story with this particular route.

newyorklondon

I am wrong in the post above! You can book it, but it's complicated because there is an IT glitch making it look like route is not available at first. I'll write up how I did shortly, but I just wanted to post this now and then correct my previous post.

I found a range of availability online (below is Y out, J back in November).

newyorklondon

I'll try and provide a simple way to do the search (and book) online.

1) Start with any bookable routing which you know works. For your example, I picked MCO-LHR, then 'pay with miles'.

2) When those results come back (it doesn't matter what they are), hit 'refine search' and go in and change it to the route you want. In this example, I changed LHR to AMS.

3) You will see that 'pay with miles' will grey out, but is still 'selected' with the red dot. This is the glitch.

4) Hit 'refine search' once again, and your MCO-AMS results should populate. Once you are here, you can change dates, move months etc as normal without having to do steps 1-3 each time.

Let me know if this works for you!

CosmicGirl

I've read a report of someone successfully booking a OW MCO-AMS on DL in J with VS for 50,000 miles + $5.60 on a UK board. They simply wanted to add their son on the same flight for which they had a cash booking and had no issue getting this ticketed by FC. IIRC this was in May.

When I called the agent was able to pull up that it would be 100k return in J but was unable to tell me how much the fees would be. Mind you, the agent did not appear to know the difference between taxes and fuel surcharges when I asked if they charged fuel on DL. She just kept replying "yes, there will be taxes to pay". The data point on the UK board suggests they don't charge YQ but that was ex-US and we're probably not that lucky on AMS-MCO.

I intend to call back hoping to get a different agent, but it would help to know which dates to ask for.

newyorklondon

Yeah, that makes sense - I just worked out how to do it online. See the posts above! Let us know if it works for you.

CosmicGirl

It worked, thank you so much! This confirms what I wanted to know: the taxes and fees to be paid are the same as when booking the award with DL. It just sucks that you get hit with charges ex-AMS but not if you do a return from the US. At least it's still cheaper to book two OWs than to book one return.

newyorklondon

Hooray!