Why is so difficult to fly across the 2-year old threshold with (some) airlines?

1/25/2018 9:25:40 PM

The answer to why it’s so difficult is because infants under 2 don’t have their own seats, while children over 2 do. Therefore:

  • Infant tickets are cheap (10% of adult fare is typical) because they cost the airline nothing, it’s just two people in one adult seat. But because of this…

  • They don’t want to give an essentially-free infant a child seat, because that will take up an actual seat that could have been sold to an adult at full price.

    • They can’t let the child be booked as an infant on the way back, because there may be aviation regulations that prohibit seating a child over 2 as a lap child during takeoff/landing.

  • Consequently, most airlines have the policy that if a child turns 2 during the validity of the ticket, they’re not eligible for an infant fare and have to purchase a child fare.

So your options are to purchase a child fare for the whole journey (which may require reaching out to a travel agent or the airline directly), or to purchase separate one-way tickets, one as infant and one as child.

That said, from personal experience flying with two-year-olds, I’d recommend biting the bullet and getting them their own seat, since at that age trying to hold them in your lap for a long flight on a packed plane is about as pleasant as wrestling with a bag of octopuses.

1/23/2018 7:57:22 PM

Book your daughter’s travel as two one-way trips, one as an infant and one as a child. Then call the airline and have them link the booking references to your round-trip one.

1/23/2018 5:30:05 PM

As outlined in a related question, airlines never bother verifying the dates of birth you enter when checking in or purchasing a ticket. Therefore the simplest solution is to “age up” your daughter by a year and book a return child ticket instead of the cheaper infant ticket.

You may also complain to the airline about the quality of their booking systems, but there’s not much you can do otherwise except going around the system in some way.

1/23/2018 3:28:51 PM

Book the flight with the child’s age as of departure, as a return trip, and you should have no problems.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

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Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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