Childrens Rates
 

Pricing airflight tickets for Christmas Gift/s for son/wife and grandgirls. Do children have a different rate? Hubby and I are having a friendly discussion regarding this. I say we pay for the seat and it's a set price no matter what your age. Then noticed when pricing the tickets; they asked how may children and seniors. Sure would appreciate any hints you can give me. My son's in the airforce and we've always flown to his base for Christmas. Thought it might be nice to have he and his family come home to have the whole family together.

I have always paid the same price for my 4 kids seats as for my husband and I. With the exception of 8 years ago when flights to Europe offered child fares.

Not sure why some airlines ask for # of adults and # of children and other airlines do not.

From my experience, our flights within the US have no difference in pricing, but many of the flights we have taken overseas (to/from/within Europe, Africa, Asia) have had discounted rates for kids under 12. A few airlines even offer a discount for "youth" under 16 - but those are harder to find!

Unfortunately.....we passed the "under 12" age a few years ago!

Maybe the question about kids and seniors has to do with the emergency exit rows.

Some airlines have senior prices, whenever I look for my father, sometimes they have them available, sometimes it says "no seats at this price".

It's probably the same as seats on sale: fixed number of those.

We have a 6-year-old. When I've booked our flights to the Caribbean, his ticket cost less. The ticket price itself was the same as ours, the taxes were less.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when you will get a reduced fare for a child's seat and when you won't. I always research/follow ticket prices online for a while before actually purchasing them. Sometimes a reduced fare comes up for my child, sometimes not...and this will be to the same location just checking on a different day. This has happened for either domestic or international flights. I guess I've noticed the reduced rate is less likely if there are less available seats, but I can't say that with certainty.

A number of years ago, NWA had a summer special where kids flew for half price. DH had regular ticket, kids were half price and I had FF ticket to Hawaii.

Thanks to all for responding. Hubby and I have decided to fly out to Hawaii to be with them instead of flying them home for Christmas.

Good plan. I remember my grandparents saying that they wanted their kids to all move to various interesting places so that they could come visit :)