Bizarre: You can’t book Avios flight tickets for babies / infants via Iberia Plus

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• Simon says:

  31 Aug31 August 04:29

  Singapore Airlines have this same policy, can be very expensive on a one way business fare you would have used miles for…

  • Matthew says:

    31 Aug31 August 06:04

    Indeed. I remember paying almost £600 for a lap infant ticket to NZ with Singapore Airlines!

    • Scallder says:

      31 Aug31 August 06:30

      Us too – was more cash than two adult reward seats in business to NZ combined!

      • Marc says:

        31 Aug31 August 07:27

        I’m looking to buy tickets to Tokyo/Seoul next Summer for me, my wife and son (who will then be 2). I assume I will have to pay full price and get a business class seat for my son now he is 2? The Indecisiveness in Seoul/Tokyo is because we are actually flying to Australia, but realise it is near impossible to use a companion voucher the whole way to Oz!

        • Laineyling says:

          31 Aug31 August 07:55

          Once 2 or over they need their own seat. Interesting trick (and i have tried this and it works) if you start itinerary before 2 yrs you pay infant seat rates and then BA gives seats for free for any flights where they are now 2 or over.

          Caveats, ONLY works for BA bookings and the process to get the agent to hold the seats is very long winded and not every agent knows about it, also at the airport check that they the seat printed on boarding pass.

          We ended up denied boarding as the check in agent failed to release the seat for our son and by the time we went to board was too late as she had given the seat away….

        • Pid says:

          31 Aug31 August 08:25

          Yes you will have to buy a seat if your son is over 2.

  • Spk says:

    31 Aug31 August 07:54

    I can confirm singapore airlines uses fully flexible fare to calculate 10%. Unfortunately I was the one who paid it last year.

• Alex says:

  31 Aug31 August 05:15

  The airlines that let you use miles to book for infants (rather than pay 10% of the cash price) are the exception rather than the norm. This may not appear to be so in the UK where both BA and VS allow miles infant bookings, but the rest of the world is not so fortunate!

  • HAM76 says:

    31 Aug31 August 05:30

    Lufhansa Group charges no miles for infants, but requires all taxes to be paid. Children until the age of 12 pay only 75% the miles of a regular award ticket.

    • John says:

      31 Aug31 August 06:25

      Well obviously they have to comply with government requirements regarding taxes. Do you mean they also charge the full amount of “carrier surcharges”?

      • HAM76 says:

        31 Aug31 August 09:30

        Yes, full taxes and airline surcharges. You can’t book online, either. Lufthansa lets you pay taxes and surcharges with miles. I don’t know what happens if you have a ticket fully booked with miles and then add an infant.

• SydneySwan says:

  31 Aug31 August 06:24

  Weidly, British Airways WILL book you an Avios ticket on an Iberia flight.

  You my want to correct the mispelling Rob.

• SydneySwan says:

  31 Aug31 August 06:25

  may – damn auto-correct!

• Jack W says:

  31 Aug31 August 06:35

  Is it possible to get BA to add a baby/child to an avios booking? I have a 241 voucher which I will use for two adults (max avios and min cash basis). Can I then add, presumably via the call centre) a minor with min avios and max cash?

  • Rob says:

    31 Aug31 August 08:42

    Yes, this is fairly common due to new babies not being named before birth.

  • Genghis says:

    31 Aug31 August 10:14

    Yes. V easy to do. I amended quite a few bookings once my son was born and we’d been to registry office.

• Lumma says:

  31 Aug31 August 06:38

  “If this really is how it works, it makes Iberia Plus redemptions for Avios a poor deal for most people.”

  I’m not sure “most people” are people with babies wanting to travel on points

  • memesweeper says:

    31 Aug31 August 08:06

    Indeed – should read “poor deal for most people with infants” .

    • Tony says:

      31 Aug31 August 08:54

      And beyond that, it’s only a poor deal for people who 1) have infants, 2) have an IB Avios account and 3) want to make a premium(?) redemption in that two year period.

      So whilst this is an annoying quirk, it really is only a problem for the absolute minority.

• Eli gold says:

  31 Aug31 August 06:46

  Excellent work. That really covers it.

  The last subtitle says wei(r)dly

• Andrew says:

  31 Aug31 August 06:51

  Interesting article but why not just phone Iberia to make a dummy booking and answer the question once and for all rather than rely on conjecture and second hand reports from FT?

  • Lumma says:

    31 Aug31 August 07:37

    Have you ever tried phoning Iberia?

    • Andrew says:

      31 Aug31 August 07:41

      I haven’t. But then I also haven’t just written an article about booking infant seats on Iberia on my points and miles blog.

      • Rob says:

        31 Aug31 August 08:39

        Surely you’ve been in this game long enough not to trust an airline call centre 🙂

    • xcalx says:

      31 Aug31 August 09:37

      I have 3 times this year for refunds from cancelled flights. 2 x avois bookings fully refunded within 7 days and a cash booking refunded within 10 days.

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