From the Feedback Files: Traveling with Kids
This week, we received several questions from users about children’s fares. “Why can’t I search for children’s fares on Kayak?” so many of you asked. With summer almost here and family vacation planning underway, the time is right to unpack the mystery of children’s airfares.
Do major airlines sell children’s tickets?
Unfortunately, this is a complicated answer that depends on the age of your child and your destination. Some airlines offer child fares; others don’t. When traveling with your infant, be sure to bring along a birth certificate; the airline will want to see proof of the child’s age. Here are a few guidelines to help plan travel, but it’s best to check with the airline in advance:
- Infant under 2 and willing to have them sit on your lap? Children under 2 don’t require tickets for domestic trips if you are prepared to have them sit on your lap. Some airlines require a Boarding Verification Document to note that the child is traveling with you.
- Feel more comfortable with your infant in an approved child seat? Most airlines require you to buy a ticket to ensure that you can use a child restraint seat, but many sell discounted fares for this purpose.
- Traveling overseas? For international travel, airline policies vary widely from carrier to carrier, so you’ll need to check with that carrier. Airline policy varies based on the child’s age and the destination. Also, be sure to ask about bassinets. If available, a bassinet provides a place for your baby to sleep (other than your lap) during the flight.
To help with your research, here are links to the policies of some major US carriers:
(Air Tran offers special fees for unaccompanied minors (5-12 years old) $25 for one-way and nonstop direct flights and $50 roundtrip flights.)
Why doesn’t Kayak allow users to search for children’s fares?
The diverse policies across different airlines make it very difficult to present intelligible search results for child fares. Our engineers are good, but they aren’t miracle workers. The results of a child fare search would be overwhelmed with asterisks and exceptions, and Kayak’s filtering and sorting tools would not be effective.
March 29th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
It’s so great to finally see someone doing something good with their user’s feedback. I’ve always wondered if it was a machine that would create auto-replies to the ‘contact us’ questions. I always leave feedback or suggestions or ask questions, and rarely get a response from a person. Not sure if you guys do that but at least it’s nice to see you providing some useful tips here. Keep it up!
March 31st, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Good info. But the Southwest link points to the JetBlue page.
April 1st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Thanks for the feedback! At Kayak, we absolutely LOVE our users and the feedback they give us. Unlike most other companies you were referring to, every single feedback, suggestion, or question sent in to Kayak is personally answered by one of our employees…don’t be surprised if you get a response directly from out CTO! Stay tuned for our weekly “From the Feedback Files” post…we’ll post a new one every Friday. Thanks again for the kind words…make sure you tell all your friends too!
-Tyler
April 1st, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Thanks for the comment Jen – I fixed the Southwest link. Stay tuned for this Friday’s Feedback File post!
April 11th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Hi,
I hope you can help me answer a specific question. If my wife and I are traveling overseas with our 1.5 year old, do we first buy tickets through Kayak.com, and then contact the airline (foreign carrier) and handle our daughter’s ticket? Is this the recommended procedure? Any risk of the carrier having a problem with us going about it this way? Thanks!
April 11th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Hi Gene,
I’m happy to hear you and your family are going on a trip! Your best bet to secure reservations for you, your wife, and child is to run your search on here at Kayak.com for two adult tickets. Kayak is a search engine and will find the best possible flight options for you. When you find the perfect flight, go ahead and click on the price or the airline name and Kayak will hand you directly to the website of the air carrier. So, you wont actually book your reservation with Kayak.com, you’ll use us to save you time and the hassle of searching all the different sites out there…we do it for you!
Once you’re on the air carriers website, I suggest you contact them directly to inquire about they’re specific rates and fees for traveling with children. You have some background info from our blog post, so you’ll have no problem asking the right questions about traveling as a family.
Hope this helps!
-Tyler
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:49 am
Nice site, thanks.