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Our daughter turns two next year – thankfully we have made the most before that, currently in BKK and off to CPT in March on 241s – what is the best approach to maximise 241, Avios and cash returns if we want to continue flying long haul when we have to pay 90% full fare?
Any tips or experienced advice very welcome. I am too old to fly long haul in economy…
I can’t remember exactly what we used to pay on redemptions before my son was 12 or whatever they count as an adult but I think it was full avios and maybe a very small reduction for APD on the overall surcharge element. You’re effectively paying for another full passenger once they’re past the infant stage. We use various options, e.g. 1 parent and child on the 241, with the other parent on a cash booking (especially if working towards status), or a separate avios booking (with an upgrade voucher if we have one). What I found works well is to book a BA Holiday for the 2nd adult with a hotel room and/or car, so you get all the benefits of that such as not having to pay the balance until a few weeks before travel. There’s usually an option to choose a room that will accommodate 3 of you so it’s not a problem only having one person on the booking.
Get your a partner a BAPP, still get 50% off the third seat by using 2 vouchers for your bookings for 3. Or take a grandparent along for memories/help/guilt reasons….
Definitely make the most of non school holiday travelling while you can – Dubai in November or January, Disney World in March, Europe late June or first week of September etc etc….
And if it’s the only option, be prepared to suffer in a econ/Prem econ journey as a last resort. The joy of a family trip will far outweigh the few hours of misery. (sleeping pills vital)
Definitely take advantage of being able to travel in term time while you can – though at least with award bookings you’re not paying any more (just the extra avios if you have to fly on peak dates) for your travel, unlike cash bookings. Probably the best thing about being able to book flights with avios, as long as you have a bit of flexibility on destination.
And PE is indeed, not that bad, especially overnight when you’re not really taking advantage of the F & B and IFE.
The issue with BA (and some others) is the Club Suite is really unsuitable for a small child IMO so if we fly at all we’d be sticking to PE unless perhaps ex-Gatwick (and there is at least one CS aircraft there I noticed now next year) . Depending on where you are going / time of year etc then out of school holidays Avios doesn’t seem to offer much value in this cabin vs cash prices
To be honest between ages 2-~10 I don’t see us doing much if any long haul, probably stick to UK/France (Brittany Ferries was a revelation this summer – what a civilised way to travel!) but we’ll see, I’ll miss my Asia trips too much perhaps!
Just to offer a counter argument here – I find it harder to travel with my kids now they are older (teens) as they’re significantly more “needy”. A ride on a boat or a trip to the beach or zoo (I’m thinking of the many great trips we had to Singapore) no longer cut it, but they’re not old enough to go off and explore a city on their own. So you end up a bit channelled into what does & doesn’t appeal, with the result that this summer I got home and wondered why I had bothered doing an expensive two week trip when a couple of long weekends would have probably been better.
It was when I found them playing video games on their iPhones inside the villa (had a lovely pool out front) with their friends back home that I just thought “what’s the point…”
And to answer the original question, we found that booking the adults on the 2-4-1 then the kids when under 12 on WT+ with Avios for upgrades helped, as you saved quite a lot on the base fare.
Just to offer a counter argument here – I find it harder to travel with my kids now they are older (teens) as they’re significantly more “needy”. A ride on a boat or a trip to the beach or zoo (I’m thinking of the many great trips we had to Singapore) no longer cut it, but they’re not old enough to go off and explore a city on their own…
Depends on the kids and the holiday. When they were younger, our kids always begged us to take them on holiday as trips were centered on activities that we and they both loved – skiing, mountain biking, hiking, sailing, surfing, etc. If we’d invited them to visit Florida’s theme parks or on an all-inclusive trip to sit by a pool, we’d have faced mutiny, though. Friends have taken teenage kids on safari or scuba diving with similar success.
They’re in their 20s now, and still want to come away with us a couple of times a year. The trick is to not be boring.
I think the whole point is to plan and book as early as you can.
You’ll also realise that some of those plans will fail — kids get sick all the time. And, you’ll have to deal with refunds, broken strollers, conjunctivitis etc… When they are infants, they sleep. Then they grow a bit up 🙂
As a family of three, we always use one BAPP 241 per trip. It is a good idea to get a BAPP card for Player 2, so that you can cover two trips. Even the Barclay’s upgrade vouchers help, but they are expensive mile-wise. In my last booking, I used a BAPP 241 and a Barclays upgrade voucher, which was not too bad.
And if you still have some energy for more than two international long haul trips with a small child, come back here and explain how 🙂
Kids change. My son used to love snorkelling, zoos, museums, theme parks and most other forms of entertainment but nowadays just wants to be inside with his laptop! He’s not quite mature enough to leave for 2/3 weeks yet though so we just suck it up, otherwise we’d spend the whole time arguing which would defeat the object of a holiday. But in some respects it’s much easier – I used to say that travelling with a small child wasn’t a holiday, it was just looking after them somewhere else!
@The real Swiss Tony similarly to @jj we found doing sporting activities (non optional; not prepared to allow them to vegetate/play on computers) like golf, tennis, sailing etc. worked very well. Might have been some grumbling about getting up early to play when cool. Also tennis/golf camps kept them busy, so we were free and they met children of their own age who they then often spent time with. As they get older, tennis and golf very useful skills for work and play.
Holidays are supposed to be a break from all that 😂
Definitely plan something around her 2nd birthday – outbound infant inbound child to effectively bag a free J seat for your daughter on the way back.
Half the time my daughter was in my seat but precious moments they were.
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