What would you say if I told you that you could negotiate the price of a lap infant’s ticket on your next award? That if you don’t like the first fare you’re quoted just ask for a lower one?

I’ve had some really interesting experiences paying to add a lap infant on international itineraries over the past several days, and thought I might be able to pass along something useful from them. My daughter is six, so a long way from traveling as a lap infant. My son isn’t yet one.

• U.S. airlines let you bring an infant on board a domestic flight or short haul international for no extra charge.
  
• However, long haul you need to buy a ticket for a lap infant.
  
• Prices vary. For paid tickets, the fare rules will tell you what percentage of the fare a lap infant will be. It’s usually 10%, but can even be 25% with some airlines.

For frequent flyer awards, some programs have actual ‘infant awards’ with a fixed cost, while most programs charge based on what the fare would have been for a paid ticket. That can get pretty expensive for business and first class tickets.

Four Recent American Airlines Infant Tickets

I booked lap infant tickets against 3 American Airlines awards and they were actually less expensive than what I was expecting.

• $132 Australia roundtrip in first class [$58 fare + Taxes & carrier-imposed fees]
  
• $352 London to U.S. in first class [$241.00 fare + Taxes & carrier-imposed fees]
  
• $267 U.S. to Venice in business class [$238.00 fare + Taxes & carrier-imposed fees]

For the London departure I was first quoted $1,100 but that was clearly wrong. The agent was insistent that they had to price current availability on the flight and this was 10% of the current ticket price. That does not make sense.

If a flight was completely sold out, so there was no availability, it would still be possible to add a lap infant! And the price of the flight had gone up precisely because I had booked it, so there were fewer seats left (in fact I’d booked half the cabin). The cheapest fares were gone.

So I pulled the lowest published fare for the route, fed that to her – violating my own usual process of never arguing with or trying to ‘educate’ an agent, but telephone hold times were long – and got the itinerary repriced for the infant.

Meanwhile there does not appear to be a $580 roundtrip first class fare between the U.S. and Australia on which to base the infant fare I booked, but tickets appear to have been issued correctly.

I also booked an Air France flight from Paris to the U.S. as well and pushed back on the first price I’d been given. Air France is like U.S. airlines, charging 10% of fare. I actually asked to pay more than they were quoting – since the difference between their most restrictive business fare they offered me and a refundable one was a mere $30.

The Best And Worst Programs For Issuing Infant Awards

When flying British Airways I will always prefer to use BA Avios for at least one of the tickets, since that will mean a much cheaper infant fare. It has one of the better policies.

British Airways, ANA, Asiana and Turkish charge 10% of the adult award ticket miles. Nobody beats Air Canada Aeroplan, though, at 2,500 miles or – even better – CAD$25 flat fee one-way. United caps infant fares at $250 (one-way or roundtrip).

Lap infant travel is a whole different level of complexity, that I’d gotten somewhat out of practice with. When my daughter was a few months old, I booked Qantas first class awards Austin – Dallas – Sydney and return. American Airlines couldn’t add an infant because they weren’t able to sell first class on Qantas despite having a Qantas joint venture.

If they’d done so, it would have been perhaps $1,500. Instead, I managed to get Qantas to sell me the infant ticket against the American Airlines-issued award for a total of $17 in taxes.

Alaska Airlines doesn’t support infant awards on partners at all. If you’re redeeming Alaska’s Mileage Plan miles for travel on a partner you can either redeem for an extra seat if available, or try to get the operating carrier to issue an infant ticket – which is not always possible.

When redeeming U.S. airline miles for travel on a partner it’s often a good idea to try the partner first to see if they issue an infant ticket, because they’ll often price it less than the U.S. carrier will.