Booking a flight for an unborn baby

[drmatte]

Hi, my partner and I are expecting our first child in a few months and have tentative plans to visit family in the UK (from Brisbane) around Easter next year.

Ideally we will have enough points for two (or is that 2.5) business class reward seats.
I hope to have enough points to book flights via Qantas, Qatar, Virgin, or KrisFlyer but will have to decide shortly to get the rest of the points.

I’m sure there must be a few people here who can offer some advice on different airlines. And booking a ticket for a not yet born person.

 

[Archipelago]

Hi, my partner and I are expecting our first child in a few months and have tentative plans to visit family in the UK (from Brisbane) around Easter next year....
..
And booking a ticket for a not yet born person.

Congratulations on your soon new arrival!


For the booking part for your infant - while it may seem like sensible forward thinking - common sense would say to wait until after the baby is born and the appropriate registration/documentation is done.

 

[glasszon]

Hi, my partner and I are expecting our first child in a few months and have tentative plans to visit family in the UK (from Brisbane) around Easter next year.

Ideally we will have enough points for two (or is that 2.5) business class reward seats.
I hope to have enough points to book flights via Qantas, Qatar, Virgin, or KrisFlyer but will have to decide shortly to get the rest of the points.

I’m sure there must be a few people here who can offer some advice on different airlines. And booking a ticket for a not yet born person.

I doubt it's possible to add an unborn baby, but you can generally add an infant after the baby's birth since the baby don't take up an extra seat. Sometimes they charge a fixed fee or sometimes they charge 10% of cash fare, which can get expensive on a one-way J ticket.

 

[travelislife]

Congratulations on your soon new arrival!


For the booking part for your infant - while it may seem like sensible forward thinking - common sense would say to wait until after the baby is born and the appropriate registration/documentation is done.

Not sure this is the right advice. Should be no need to wait if it is an infant ticket (I.e. not occupying a seat). We did a Europe J trip on SQ award seats booked through Velocity points with our 4 month old. Booked all flights for my wife and I probably 8 months out. Called up and added infant daughter when she was born.

 

[travelislife]

Link here to when I did that trip: Experience Booking Europe Trip with Velocity Points

Was obviously a while ago now (she turns 5 on Sunday!) so would have to check if any changes in process.

 

[drmatte]

Link here to when I did that trip: Experience Booking Europe Trip with Velocity Points

Was obviously a while ago now (she turns 5 on Sunday!) so would have to check if any changes in process.

Interesting thanks. One thing that has changed is taxes on a reward ticket with Virgin! Those are crazy prices.

 

[exLXCXFF]

We did that with CX in PE back in 2018, adding the baby once born via phone at a minimal cost was a breeze back then.

 

[Quickstatus]

Book your FF tickets ASAP before the birth.
Then book infant ticket after birth and baby passport issued. Infants are required to have their own passport for travel. The infant ticket can be added to an existing booking - even a FF booking. Not available online (of course) - just ring up and say "I would like to add an infant to an existing booking". For most airlines it's 10% of adult ticket for an infant ticket - which means there is no separate seat.

QF, however, has a special provision 14.3.4 for infants added to a parents QF Classic reward booking. I don't know about other airlines and don't know about using QF points on partner airlines. Basically it means you only need FF points for the adults, the infant do not require additional FF points but will need to pay a bit more in taxes/fees/charges. Note this is only for infant booking not requiring a separate seat.

Mods maybe reactivate this thread??

 

[blackcat20]

Book now, then call to add bub once he/she is born. There's usually some extra taxes to be paid but its easy enough. We've not had any issues with any of the airlines we've done that with.

 

[Solid]

Book now, then call to add bub once he/she is born. There's usually some extra taxes to be paid but its easy enough. We've not had any issues with any of the airlines we've done that with.

Our experience as well.

 

[travelislife]

Interesting thanks. One thing that has changed is taxes on a reward ticket with Virgin! Those are crazy prices.

Crazy hey, I just looked again as had completely forgotten, $194 per person for a return business class trip to Europe! Gee that was nice!

 

[Seat0B]

Book now, then call to add bub once he/she is born. There's usually some extra taxes to be paid but its easy enough. We've not had any issues with any of the airlines we've done that with.

And yes that is what we did for Seat Granddaughter (now 2.5 years old) when we were planning to take her to Japan in 2021, 2022 ....but they did not open in time.
And then when we could go in January 2023, it was too late as we did not have a ticket for her and she had passed the magic age of 2 and needed her own seat.

 

[billmurray]

To bump this thread again, we are looking to book with Signapore via Virgin for SYD - SIN - FRA.

Has anyone had experience with Singapore about adding an infant on after the booking? Looking to book with trip this week with new bub expected in ~8wks time.

 

[TomVexille]

To bump this thread again, we are looking to book with Signapore via Virgin for SYD - SIN - FRA.

Has anyone had experience with Singapore about adding an infant on after the booking? Looking to book with trip this week with new bub expected in ~8wks time.

Yes, absolutely no problems with that. We did the same with our first. Called VA a couple days after the birth and paid some taxes and the E-Ticket was issued.

Looking back at the emails, given we'd booked through VA, the infant taxes were $4.60. If we'd booked with SQ it would have been 10% of the full adult fare.

 

[travelislife]

Yes we did the same. Booked through SQ business class flights with Velocity Points. Called up Velocity and added the infant for minimal cost.

 

[billmurray]

Fantastic, thanks all.

 

[Seat0B]

Book now, then call to add bub once he/she is born. There's usually some extra taxes to be paid but its easy enough. We've not had any issues with any of the airlines we've done that with.

We also did the same when planning a trip to Japan with the then yet to be born Seat Grandaughter and her parents in 2021- scuttled by COVID so we did not go.

Post automatically merged: Feb 19, 2024

Oh I just saw I already wrote the same at post #12 the last time this was active

 

[Seat0B]

Oh I just saw I already wrote the same at post #12 the last time this was active

At least I’m consistent!