Using FF Miles for myself + Cash for my son
 

We have enough miles to buy me a ticket for LHR to SEA with Northwest (using Alaska Airlines miles) but will need to purchase a ticket for my son. He's 4 so I've been unable to use the NWA website to get a quote for his ticket. If I go through the steps as if I'm buying one for myself and one for him the price for him is about $700. Can I assume that's the price they will charge if I don't buy the adult ticket?

My plan is to call NWA and make sure I can purchase a ticket for a minor if I already have a ticket for an adult. Then redeem my miles through Alaska. Then call NWA back and purchase his ticket. Is that the right order? Has anyone done something similar?

One last question, to redeem the miles the first leg, LHR to MSP, is in business. I don't want to buy a business class ticket for my son. We're both small and can fit in coach. Should I just buy him a regular coach ticket and then offer to downgrade myself at the airport? Can I do that? I mean, who wouldn't trade their seat next to a toddler in coach for one in business?!? I just want to make sure the airline will let me!

By the way -- I've been on fodors for a while but this is my first venture into the air travel forum. Be gentle.

Not sure I follow the part about LHR to MSP being in business. That seems like an expensive use of miles.

Price for a child's ticket is the same as adult. I've just booked kids tickets online and called them adults - for ticketing purposes it doesn't matter.

I'm not familiar with those airlines, but generally a ticket bought with cash earns miles, while one bought with miles doesn't. So if the miles are valuable to you, it would make sense to buy your child's ticket with miles, and yours with cash.

Call Alaska Airlines and pay whatever small fee they will charge to book both tickets - one with miles and one with money. We have found that works more smoothly than calling the partner airline (NWA) and using miles from someone else that partners with them. If you get someone who acts confused, hang up and call back.

J62 -- LHR to MSP in business class is the only available option. We checked online and called.

Which airline do you use that a child's ticket is the same price as an adult? BA is usually about 10 -- 20% cheaper. Going through the process for NWA I believe 1 adult and 1 child was cheaper than 2 adults. I like to think a child should be less, they take up less space! But, I've traveled with him too much to know that's not really the case. For the amount of stress and noise a child can create they should really have to pay more!

clevelandb -- good point about earning miles. Thank you. I've never really paid too much attention before, but tickets are getting so expensive I'm trying to pinch any penny I can.

gail -- thank you. I was hoping that I could do it in one phone call! Hopefully I won't have to call too many times before I find someone that can help me.

My experience in the last few years has been with AA, AirTran, JetBlue and Continental. Children's price was always the same as adult.

Except for a few airlines most don't charge for different sized adults either. A petite woman is charged the same as a XXL man.

I believe there's a difference in fares for intl travel. Last year I booked my in-laws to MUC and there was a difference between adult and senior fares. NW doesn't allow you to purchase a child only ticket online but as mentioned you might consider the purchased ticket for yourself.

I don't think self downgrading would be a problem but I've never tried it and could never fathom doing that ;)

Good luck!

BKP---definitely try gail's suggestion. It is way better to have both of you on the "same" ticket or at least booked together. That way, if there are flight changes, you will get changed together.

It is possible to self-downgrade, at least on domestic flights and at least the one time my nutty son did it. We had used miles for a ticket to get him home from college and since it was a "blacked out" date we had to use premium number of miles - and this entitled him to a first class seat.

He informed us day prior to flight that he felt uncomfortable in first class and was going to request a downgrade at the airport. Which he did and it was gladly granted.

You can't be on the same PNR if one ticket is purchased and one is an award. However the two PNRs can be cross referenced (notated that the passengers are traveling together). This doesn't guarantee any changes will happen in unison but it does help.

I can't imagine they would let you book seats for each other that are not adjoining in the first place?

Patty -- what's a PNR? You're right about int'l fares being cheaper for children. We have never bought him a domestic fare so I didn't realize it would be the same price as an adult.

I think we're going to book these tonight or tomorrow. I guess the plan is to call Alaska and throw ourselves on their mercy and hope they can make it all work!

PNR=Passenger Name Record. It's a computer reservation record that can be made up of one or multiple passengers. Your confirmation number or record locator is what's used to look up your PNR. In this case, you'll have 2 separate confirmation numbers/record locators but as mentioned, they can be cross referenced.

If NW doesn't have an award seat available on the dates you want, you can also use your Alaska miles on British Airways.

Just be aware that some pretty hefty fuel surcharges are imposed on BA redemptions. IMO it's really not worth redeeming coach seats on BA.

Whew! Thank you all for your help!
NWA didn't have any coach level tickets so I would have had to use 90k to get a business class ticket that would then have to be (hopefully) downgraded at the airport to sit with my son.

So, for 65k plus the fuel charge ($350!) I bought my coach ticket on British. I did have to make the reservation with Alaska. Call British, buy my son's ticket and then call Alaska back to actually buy my ticket. We have two separate confirmation numbers but they are linked.

It's probably not the best deal or the best use of our miles, but it was still cheaper than buying the tickets straight out. The British fuel charge is excessive but a price I'm willing to pay to have a non stop with a 4 year old. NWA and Delta would have had at least one stop and about 20 hours of travel.

Again, thanks for all your help! Using miles was a bit like free money, I think I could get in to this!

Glad that worked out for you both!

Patty--yes, the BA fuel surcharge is steep, but still worth it for a ticket from Seattle. I don't know when they are going, but last I checked, tickets for coach seats for next June (Seattle to London to Italy) were around $1500.

Glad it worked out. FWIW, you made the right call, since you were commited to using miles on this trip. Even though you paid $350 for the fuel charge, you saved 25k miles. This works out to $0.014 per mile, which makes cash the right choice - I almost never redeem at less than $0.03 per mile in value. Since you weren't going to sit in business anyway, the miles would have been wasted.

Glad to hear! I agree given that you couldn't get a coach award on another carrier and the BA flight is nonstop, you made a good choice. Forget what I said earlier!