We were recently asked to pay $770 for a lap-infant on a Trans-Atlantic flight on Delta. This was not for a seat for our boneless, drooling, bundle of love, but rather for the opportunity for the him to sit on our laps on two 10+ hour flights. We chose to walk away from our two-week family vacation to Italy rather than subject ourselves to the disaster than modern American air travel has become. This is our story.
A childhood friend recently invited me to his wedding in Lucca, Italy. As the married new parent with two kids, I knew that the only practical way I could go would be to include my family. I had accrued over 200,000 miles in Alaska’s frequent flyer plan and my wife had a bit over 140,000. Some of the miles were from air travel, but most were from using our Alaska Visa Signature Card. Delta recently announced major changes to their mileage program. This led me to believe the value of these miles is quickly diminishing so I opted to cash in 150,000 miles and go to my friend’s wedding in Tuscany.
Some sleuthing on Alaska Airlines site led to a workable flight from Seattle (SEA) to Paris (CDG). The outbound would be a direct flight on Delta and the return a two-leg journey staring with a flight from Paris (CGD) to Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) on American that would then connect to an Alaska flight from DFW to SEA. We could finish with a cheap flight to Florence once in France or take the train.
At the time of booking I did not declare my infant son as it was my understanding that I needed to call the booking airline, Alaska in this case, and pay the associated fees. I understood that the fee for the lap infant would be roughly 10% of the cost of a ticket at the current pricing. I booked the ticket and received confirmation of my flight. I called Alaska back 5 days later on October 23, 2014 to add the lap infant and confirm that all of our seats were in fact together. During the call I made sure that the airline was aware that we would be traveling with a lap infant. I hung up the phone feeling certain that I had arranged things as needed and expected to arrive at the airport on the day of our flight (December 1) and pay the usual fee of between $100 and $200 for the lap infant. Being detail oriented I also left a note on the wall next to my desk that confimred that our infant was noted in the reservation.
When we arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport we were directed to the long special services line at Delta as they would handle the first leg of our flight to Paris. The woman at the counter was very helpful and polite.
At the counter the Delta agent asked if I had a a ticket for the lap infant. I did not as Alaska would be unable to issue this and I expected to be given this at the airport by Delta. It was clear that I would pay something for his flight and had budgeted up to $200. It took the agent awhile to sort out how to issue the ticket. When she finally did she seemed amazed to report that the lap infant’s fare would be $770. Some further investigation revealed that his fare would be based on the cost of a full fare one-way ticket from SEA-CGD which priced out at around $4000 and another full-fare, 14-day advance ticket from CDG-DFW on American and then a connecting one-way leg from DFW-SEA for around $3700. Alaska allows you to book roundtrip awards on a mixture of carriers. The grand total for the lap infant was $770.10. As the flight was full this would not buy an extra seat, but would simply allow us to hold the child on our lap on the two trans-Atlantic flights.
We called Alaska to see if they had a resolution and the best they could offer was to refund the 150,000 miles and all associated fees we had paid for our three other tickets if we did not take the flight. They went one step beyond and also waived the $125 per person fee they usually charge to re-deposit the miles. We had the agent hold our seats and retreated for about 15 minutes to decide what to do.
As mountain guides we do not make a ton of money, but we have a lot of flexibility in our schedule from November 1 into early December as business slows and we wait for the winter snows. We were in the odd position of being able to walk away from the trip, side-step the unusually high charges from Delta & American and simply wait to visit Italy in the future. We knew that we would lose much of the money we had already spent on lodging and rental cars in Europe. I added it up in my head and came up with a loss of about $1400. As an experienced traveller I would normally roll over, hand them my credit card and chalk up the $770 to the cost of travel and move forward. Instead we decided to do the only thing that gave us any sense of power and we opted to walk away from our trip.
We called our friend in Italy and he understood and he was able to give some of the hotel reservations to family in Italy. We committed to make up the trip at a more logical time and went on our way. Our 3-year old was very sad as we had been describing the trip to her for weeks, but she is 3 so we were able to substitute a visit to the zoo, which passed her evaluation of reasonable.
As I prepared to write this up I contacted Alaska to simply share my story. The agent I spoke with was very friendly and I did not want to put her through the “crazy guy” on the phone routine. This was no more her fault than the Delta agents. She asked several times what I was asking for and I repeatedly told her that did not want money I simply wanted someone to admit that my situation seemed a bit over the top and take steps to correct it. She offered me $100 or 4,000 miles and I declined mentioning that I would rather share my story in hopes of preserving some young family’s experience down the road.
So what are we all to do? I think we should take a moment and consider what we as individuals do to perpetuate bad policy by Delta. Individually we have no power to change the system, but collectively we have the ability to be heard. Here are some ideas.
- Choose an airline not based in the United States for flights out of the US. I have flown to Europe on SAS and KLM and had a much better experience. I often fly to Asia on Thai an am stunned at the quality of everything. Beware when booking that many flights sold by European airlines are often on Delta equipment and subject to the same issues. You can find reasonable fares on Swiss, Brussels Airlines, & Lufthansa. If willing to stop over in a cool place like Reykjavik, Iceland you can often get good deals to Europe on Iceland Air. There are worse fates than exchanging convenience for a visit to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam on your layover.
- Stop using credit cards that earn miles. We are somewhat addicted to our Alaska Visa and as we receive one mile for every dollar spent. As small business owners we also pay radically increased merchant fees when our customers use cards that accrue miles. When you go to the grocery and buy $100 worth of groceries to get your 100 miles small merchants pay between $3.00 and $3.75 to the credit card company. Who do you figure ultimately pays for the additional cost? We do in the form of higher prices. Pay with a debit card, use a pin, and everyone saves money
- Forget the concept of airline partners. I often take less convenient flights to earn miles on Alaska. This has me stuck with Delta. We often pay an extra $75 to fly on a partner simply to get miles. Skip this step and fly with a good airline.
- Fly less. It is clear that carbon emissions from all of our flights are one of the primary contributors to greenhouse gasses. My family lives to travel, but we are increasingly concerned about the effect of flying to the ends of the earth to climb and ski on glaciers that are quickly disappearing partially due to our cumulative vacations. Our New Year’s resolution is to not make MVP status next year as it represents too much travel. Stay local, replace one vacation with service work or a short local adventure. This will negatively affect our international business, but it is the right thing to do when looking to the future of our kids.
- Be sure to have a lap-infant ticket in hand with all of the fees paid when you go to the airport. We accept some responsibility for not researching this in more detail. We could afford to pay $770 for our cute baby to sit on our laps, but I am sure there are many out there that could not. We are also well-aware of all the stress we alleviated by not having our infant on the flight in the first place. If a dozen of you that cannot afford an extra $770 read this article then we will have successfully shared our experience.
I realize all of the holes in my argument. If your job is to fly cross-country twice a month in the course of your business you need to continue to do so in the short term. Do simply put some thought into how you might be able to reduce your total travel by say 20-25% in a given year. We have already done this and oddly it did not reduce the businesses growth in any way. We all have the ability to exercise discretion. Delta had the discretion to charge less just as I have the discretion to share my story.
Let’s give Delta the opportunity to change their thinking by sharing this article via the usual channels such as Facebook and Twitter.
I was recently charged $770 for a lap-infant on a Trans-Atlantic flight on Delta. This was not for a seat for the infant, but rather for the opportunity for the child to sit on my lap on two 10+ hour flights. I chose to walk away from our two-week family vacation to Italy rather than subject my family to the disaster than modern American air travel has become. This is our story.
A childhood friend recently invited me to his wedding in Lucca, Italy. As the married new parent with two kids, I knew that the only practical way I could go would be to include my family. I had accrued over 200,000 miles in Alaska’s frequent flyer plan and my wife had a bit over 140,000. Some of the miles were from air travel, but most were from using our Alaska Visa Signature Card. Delta recently announced major changes to their mileage program. This led me to believe the value of these miles is quickly diminishing so I opted to cash in 150,000 miles and go to my friend’s wedding in Tuscany.
Some sleuthing on Alaska Airlines site led to a workable flight from Seattle (SEA) to Paris (CDG). The outbound would be a direct flight on Delta and the return a two-leg journey staring with a flight from Paris (CGD) to Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) on American that would then connect to an Alaska flight from DFW to SEA. We could finish with a cheap flight to Florence once in France or take the train.
At the time of booking I did not declare my infant son as it was my understanding that I needed to call the booking airline, Alaska in this case, and pay the associated fees. I understood that the fee for the lap infant would be roughly 10% of the cost of a ticket at the current pricing. I booked the ticket and received confirmation of my flight. I called Alaska back 5 days later on October 23, 2014 to add the lap infant and confirm that all of our seats were in fact together. During the call I made sure that the airline was aware that we would be traveling with a lap infant. I hung up the phone feeling certain that I had arranged things as needed and expected to arrive at the airport on the day of our flight (December 1) and pay the usual fee of between $100 and $200 for the lap infant. Being detail oriented I also left a note on the wall next to my desk that confimred that our infant was noted in the reservation.
When we arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport we were directed to the long special services line at Delta as they would handle the first leg of our flight to Paris. The woman at the counter was very helpful and polite.
At the counter the Delta agent asked if I had a a ticket for the lap infant. I did not as Alaska would be unable to issue this and I expected to be given this at the airport by Delta. It was clear that I would pay something for his flight and had budgeted up to $200. It took the agent awhile to sort out how to issue the ticket. When she finally did she seemed amazed to report that the lap infant’s fare would be $770. Some further investigation revealed that his fare would be based on the cost of a full fare one-way ticket from SEA-CGD which priced out at around $4000 and another full-fare, 14-day advance ticket from CDG-DFW on American and then a connecting one-way leg from DFW-SEA for around $3700. Alaska allows you to book roundtrip awards on a mixture of carriers. The grand total for the lap infant was $770.10. As the flight was full this would not buy an extra seat, but would simply allow us to hold the child on our lap on the two trans-Atlantic flights.
We called Alaska to see if they had a resolution and the best they could offer was to refund the 150,000 miles and all associated fees we had paid for our three other tickets if we did not take the flight. They went one step beyond and also waived the $125 per person fee they usually charge to re-deposit the miles. We had the agent hold our seats and retreated for about 15 minutes to decide what to do.
As mountain guides we do not make a ton of money, but we have a lot of flexibility in our schedule from November 1 into early December as business slows and we wait for the winter snows. We were in the odd position of being able to walk away from the trip, side-step the unusually high charges from Delta & American and simply wait to visit Italy in the future. We knew that we would lose much of the money we had already spent on lodging and rental cars in Europe. I added it up in my head and came up with a loss of about $1400. As an experienced traveller I would normally roll over, hand them my credit card and chalk up the $770 to the cost of travel and move forward. Instead we decided to do the only thing that gave us any sense of power and we opted to walk away from our trip.
We called our friend in Italy and he understood and he was able to give some of the hotel reservations to family in Italy. We committed to make up the trip at a more logical time and went on our way. Our 3-year old was very sad as we had been describing the trip to her for weeks, but she is 3 so we were able to substitute a visit to the zoo, which passed her evaluation of reasonable.
As I prepared to write this up I contacted Alaska to simply share my story. The agent I spoke with was very friendly and I did not want to put her through the “crazy guy” on the phone routine. This was no more her fault than the Delta agents. She asked several times what I was asking for and I repeatedly told her that did not want money I simply wanted someone to admit that my situation seemed a bit over the top and take steps to correct it. She offered me $100 or 4,000 miles and I declined mentioning that I would rather share my story in hopes of preserving some young family’s experience down the road.
So what are we all to do? I think we should take a moment and consider what we as individuals do to perpetuate bad policy by Delta. Individually we have no power to change the system, but collectively we have the ability to be heard. Here are some ideas.
- Choose an airline not based in the United States for flights out of the US. I have flown to Europe on SAS and KLM and had a much better experience. I often fly to Asia on Thai an am stunned at the quality of everything. Beware when booking that many flights sold by European airlines are often on Delta equipment and subject to the same issues. You can find reasonable fares on Swiss, Brussels Airlines, & Lufthansa. If willing to stop over in a cool place like Reykjavik, Iceland you can often get good deals to Europe on Iceland Air. There are worse fates than exchanging convenience for a visit to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam on your layover.
- Stop using credit cards that earn miles. We are somewhat addicted to our Alaska Visa and as we receive one mile for every dollar spent. As small business owners we also pay radically increased merchant fees when our customers use cards that accrue miles. When you go to the grocery and buy $100 worth of groceries to get your 100 miles small merchants pay between $3.00 and $3.75 to the credit card company. Who do you figure ultimately pays for the additional cost? We do in the form of higher prices. Pay with a debit card, use a pin, and everyone saves money
- Forget the concept of airline partners. I often take less convenient flights to earn miles on Alaska. This has me stuck with Delta. We often pay an extra $75 to fly on a partner simply to get miles. Skip this step and fly with a good airline.
- Fly less. It is clear that carbon emissions from all of our flights are one of the primary contributors to greenhouse gasses. My family lives to travel, but we are increasingly concerned about the effect of flying to the ends of the earth to climb and ski on glaciers that are quickly disappearing partially due to our cumulative vacations. Our New Year’s resolution is to not make MVP status next year as it represents too much travel. Stay local, replace one vacation with service work or a short local adventure. This will negatively affect our international business, but it is the right thing to do when looking to the future of our kids.
- Be sure to have a lap-infant ticket in hand with all of the fees paid when you go to the airport. We accept some responsibility for not researching this in more detail. We could afford to pay $770 for our cute baby to sit on our laps, but I am sure there are many out there that could not. We are also well-aware of all the stress we alleviated by not having our infant on the flight in the first place. If a dozen of you that cannot afford an extra $770 read this article then we will have successfully shared our experience.
I realize all of the holes in my argument. If your job is to fly cross-country twice a month in the course of your business you need to continue to do so in the short term. Do simply put some thought into how you might be able to reduce your total travel by say 20-25% in a given year. We have already done this and oddly it did not reduce our businesses growth in any way. We all have the ability to exercise discretion. Delta had the discretion to charge less just as I have the discretion to share my story. Bear in mind that the individual agents we worked with were doing their best. Perhaps these types of stories will one day improve their situation.
Let’s give Delta the opportunity to change their thinking by sharing this article via the usual channels such as Facebook and Twitter.
