to summarise the below
can book a AA redemption on QF with an infant on lap
cost of infant NOTHiNGmust make a few phone calls between AA and QF
Hello all
a long while ago , while planning for the up coming christmas, and knowing an infant would be joining i asked the brain trust of AFF how do i go about booking a trip with an infant on an award ticket the cheapest way possible
now it seems virgin elevate does not allow this (as far as my limited research shows) which if they did would have been the cheapest option possible, cbr-tsv, with points purchase bonus etc etc.
it was down to virgin, qff or aa,
now virgin i havent flown since 2011 due to a cancelled flight and a following day miss connection which cut my first overseas trip ever, short by about 30%, virgin preety much handed me into the arms of qantas, if only they knew how much i would spend over the next 3 years on flights.
so using the 65k odd points on virgin felt like a bit of a waste (but to be honest i have no idea what we are planning to do with those points, thinking sydney- perth one day, but once again aa points would be far cheaper to use)
so down to qff and aa (on qf obviously)
i tried to make such a redemption booking with an infant on lap on aa site (as you can do with qff or virgin) but there was no way to do this online.
so i called the australian aa call centre and was told had to use points to make such a booking, i thought this is very wrong and very expensive.
couple month later
decided to search outside the realm of australia and checked some of the US sites, came across a thread that said an infant can be booked on lap with redemption booking, just have to ring up and add the infant and pay the taxes/fees etc.
decided to ring the us aa call centre and this was confirmed (thanks oz aa)
few month later with xmas coming and a decent AA offer available we started making the bookings
this is where it got tricky and interesting, i rang aa US again to confirm (after holding the tickets online) and the agent said as a domestic booking there is NO EXTRA fee for infant booking, i was shocked so i quickly said i have the bookings on hold what do i do now, confirm the booking and ring back to add the infant, he said he can add the infant now to the booking, i thought great and he added the infant to two of the three bookings as required.
call length including on hold 30min
now that the infant was included i went to finalise the purchase with points etc. thats where problems started, i could confirm my husbands booking with our 3 yr old on his own flight, could not confirm my flight with infant, or return flight with infant and 3 yr old
also the bookings disappeared from the husbands AA page (book through his account) went onto my aa account and was not there either, panic started.
rang AA OZ centre because the AA US centre takes far longer to get through at the times we were ringing.
so rang the AA OZ centre and relaying the locator codes and explaining to them that since an infant has been put on they have disapperead of my page, i said i was loooking to finalise all purchases of the flights right now, they then informed me that i would have to pay extra fees for the infant, i said to them this is not what the US agent had told me, they said they would put me on hold and find out, a short time later they said it was correct that since the flight is domestic no extra fees where applicable.
now the fun starts, the AA oz centre said as the ticket for the infant is free, I would need to ring qantas and give them a bunch of numbers they would recognise on there system and they would then issue me with infant tickets, then call back AA and relay the numbers qantas will give me and give them to AA and they will put it on there system and finalise the bookings.
call length 10min
off i go to ring qantas on a friday afternoon at 550pm 45min on hold ringing with my qff gold number (never waited that long since being gold with qff but never ring on a friday afternoon at 6pm)
so telling the qff agent of the situation, they ask if i had the ticket, i said no i do not have the tickets they are on hold and as soon as you issue infant tickets to me i will ring AA back to finalise all my tickets, she had to check with her supervisor as to what and how to do it. anyway an hour later after getting through to the agent i finally got some new numbers to ring back AA with
now this call took a total of 1hr 40 min, seriosuly the husband said lets go to bunnings i need to get some stuff took the 15min drive to bunnings, had paint tinted (you know how long that takes in bunnings) grab a few other items purchased them and also retunred a couple of items, all before the phone call was complete
drove home and back on the phone to AA OZ
new agent had to explain things, told them couldn't finalise bookings online and would like to make all the payments with points and cash right now and that i have infant tickets from qantas
1hour 15 min later pretty well all done
except no email confirmation
rang AA again to find out why, they told me they couldnt even email it too me and that i would have to go online and use the locator numbers to find the bookings, did this on the qantas site but out of two flights only could get one e-ticket sent to email, tried three times for the other ticket still hasn't come in the email, but can find it on qff.com, might have to ring and ask them to manually email it.
now some things of interest
my qcash card was declined because i put in the wrong address online for one of the bookings
as a result the points where deducted but tickets not issued, so when i got the tickets issued by phone they deducted the points again and told me i was now short of points. they rectified this.
my qcash card was also declined when i phoned them and gave the correct address (gave the correct address because i rang qcash to find out which address was on file)
can book a AA redemption on QF with an infant on lap
cost of infant NOTHiNGmust make a few phone calls between AA and QF
Hello all
a long while ago , while planning for the up coming christmas, and knowing an infant would be joining i asked the brain trust of AFF how do i go about booking a trip with an infant on an award ticket the cheapest way possible
now it seems virgin elevate does not allow this (as far as my limited research shows) which if they did would have been the cheapest option possible, cbr-tsv, with points purchase bonus etc etc.
it was down to virgin, qff or aa,
now virgin i havent flown since 2011 due to a cancelled flight and a following day miss connection which cut my first overseas trip ever, short by about 30%, virgin preety much handed me into the arms of qantas, if only they knew how much i would spend over the next 3 years on flights.
so using the 65k odd points on virgin felt like a bit of a waste (but to be honest i have no idea what we are planning to do with those points, thinking sydney- perth one day, but once again aa points would be far cheaper to use)
so down to qff and aa (on qf obviously)
i tried to make such a redemption booking with an infant on lap on aa site (as you can do with qff or virgin) but there was no way to do this online.
so i called the australian aa call centre and was told had to use points to make such a booking, i thought this is very wrong and very expensive.
couple month later
decided to search outside the realm of australia and checked some of the US sites, came across a thread that said an infant can be booked on lap with redemption booking, just have to ring up and add the infant and pay the taxes/fees etc.
decided to ring the us aa call centre and this was confirmed (thanks oz aa)
few month later with xmas coming and a decent AA offer available we started making the bookings
this is where it got tricky and interesting, i rang aa US again to confirm (after holding the tickets online) and the agent said as a domestic booking there is NO EXTRA fee for infant booking, i was shocked so i quickly said i have the bookings on hold what do i do now, confirm the booking and ring back to add the infant, he said he can add the infant now to the booking, i thought great and he added the infant to two of the three bookings as required.
call length including on hold 30min
now that the infant was included i went to finalise the purchase with points etc. thats where problems started, i could confirm my husbands booking with our 3 yr old on his own flight, could not confirm my flight with infant, or return flight with infant and 3 yr old
also the bookings disappeared from the husbands AA page (book through his account) went onto my aa account and was not there either, panic started.
rang AA OZ centre because the AA US centre takes far longer to get through at the times we were ringing.
so rang the AA OZ centre and relaying the locator codes and explaining to them that since an infant has been put on they have disapperead of my page, i said i was loooking to finalise all purchases of the flights right now, they then informed me that i would have to pay extra fees for the infant, i said to them this is not what the US agent had told me, they said they would put me on hold and find out, a short time later they said it was correct that since the flight is domestic no extra fees where applicable.
now the fun starts, the AA oz centre said as the ticket for the infant is free, I would need to ring qantas and give them a bunch of numbers they would recognise on there system and they would then issue me with infant tickets, then call back AA and relay the numbers qantas will give me and give them to AA and they will put it on there system and finalise the bookings.
call length 10min
off i go to ring qantas on a friday afternoon at 550pm 45min on hold ringing with my qff gold number (never waited that long since being gold with qff but never ring on a friday afternoon at 6pm)
so telling the qff agent of the situation, they ask if i had the ticket, i said no i do not have the tickets they are on hold and as soon as you issue infant tickets to me i will ring AA back to finalise all my tickets, she had to check with her supervisor as to what and how to do it. anyway an hour later after getting through to the agent i finally got some new numbers to ring back AA with
now this call took a total of 1hr 40 min, seriosuly the husband said lets go to bunnings i need to get some stuff took the 15min drive to bunnings, had paint tinted (you know how long that takes in bunnings) grab a few other items purchased them and also retunred a couple of items, all before the phone call was complete
drove home and back on the phone to AA OZ
new agent had to explain things, told them couldn't finalise bookings online and would like to make all the payments with points and cash right now and that i have infant tickets from qantas
1hour 15 min later pretty well all done
except no email confirmation
rang AA again to find out why, they told me they couldnt even email it too me and that i would have to go online and use the locator numbers to find the bookings, did this on the qantas site but out of two flights only could get one e-ticket sent to email, tried three times for the other ticket still hasn't come in the email, but can find it on qff.com, might have to ring and ask them to manually email it.
now some things of interest
my qcash card was declined because i put in the wrong address online for one of the bookings
as a result the points where deducted but tickets not issued, so when i got the tickets issued by phone they deducted the points again and told me i was now short of points. they rectified this.
my qcash card was also declined when i phoned them and gave the correct address (gave the correct address because i rang qcash to find out which address was on file)
