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Trying to book a reward flight with Virgin over Xmas with my (under 2) child on my lap. Appreciate Economy is not the best class to redeem in but cash fares are very high over that period as could be expected.
Anyway, whilst BA charges fees of £19 for an infant (6% of adult fees), Virgin wants to charge me £120 (43% of adult fees!). For an infant on my lap …
Every airline makes up their infant charges – some do flat fares (€25 for Ryanair I recall) others charge 10% of the fare or so.
I think the issue is on redemptions BA charges 10% of the redemption cost (avios plus the fixed taxes) whereas Virgin and some other airlines charge 10% of what the cash fare would be. So on a long haul business you can get infant fares in the 100s for not even getting a seat.
I don’t think there’s anyway around paying up I’m afraid and remembering to avoid that airline next time.
BA is actually very generous in this regard – I recently stumped up €300 one way for Lufthansa (which I actually got lucky on, the flight was sold out when I added the infant so she did it at 10% of the lowest theoretically possible fare) and I’ve got to pay £400+tax per infant for Singapore airlines to Bali unless they file some lower fares soon!
Oh dear. I’ve got an open miles ticket to CPT with Virgin (thanks to a previous cancellation). Was hoping to book for Feb next year but now have an 8 week old to add. I’d assumed they were same as BA & it would be ~£60 and a few thousand miles.
Cash fares are £6k so if they say 10% of that it’s just got considerably more expensive!
Oh dear. I’ve got an open miles ticket to CPT with Virgin (thanks to a previous cancellation). Was hoping to book for Feb next year but now have an 8 week old to add. I’d assumed they were same as BA & it would be ~£60 and a few thousand miles.
Cash fares are £6k so if they say 10% of that it’s just got considerably more expensive!
Firstly, congratulations on your new arrival. If the flights end up costing £600 for the baby, that’s just a small down payment on the c. £200,000 cost of raising a child to 18 in the UK. That’s without premium class travel, private education or healthcare etc. Children are very expensive, but of course worth very penny.
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