hobbes79

I have 50,000 miles - enough for 2 tickets.

Wife has 25,000 miles - enough for 1 ticket.


Me, the wife and our (at the time of the flight) 5-yr old and 3-yr old need to go... 4 total.

We're happy to pay for the 4th ticket.

So I can get me and one kid on the flight

Wife can get a ticket for herself or for one of the kids.

If she tries to book a flight for one of the kids either with airmiles or credit card, she can't since it says they must travel with an adult

But if she does that, she's trying to buy 2 tickets on 25,000 miles and that doesn't work

She could buy a ticket for herself and a kid with her credit card, but then we're not using 25,000 miles and buying a plane ticket that we'd rather avoid if we can.

So she can get a ticket for herself with miles and I can get on with one kid. But that leaves one kid behind fending for itself or a week. Bit of a sophie's choice

Sooo...

How do we get all 4 on the plane while using all 75,000 miles to get the 3 free tickets and paying for the fourth?

This feels like one of those school math quizes!

Garbatellamike

Can you not get yourself + 1 kid on miles and buy the second kid (travelling with you as adult) whilst your wife gets her ticket?

Or am I being thick

hobbes79

I can't seem to (and this might be me being thick) combine the purchase of an airmiles ticket and a credit card ticket. Seems to be one or the other.

Bink

I don't know for AA specifically, but for United/Continental I'd phone up the frequent flyer desk and have them book it for you and tie the bookings together. I'm assuming it's the same for AA and they'll do it for you.

Ash UK/US

I had a similar situation, I had enough air miles for all seats but could not book the tickets online because I could not book single kids tickets and had to call because of the kids tickets they waived the phone booking fees.

tonrob

When I read your question first somehow I assumed that you must have phoned already, but on reading again I see that it doesn't look to be the case.

Pretty much all airlines I've used seem to have a variety of what could be considered "restrictive functionality" (at best, "broken" at worst) when it comes to making online redemptions. Having to phone can often be par for the course unfortunately, although you then expose yourself to the vagaries of agent training in this area which can often be hit and miss. The rule of thumb here is that if you're being told something that doesn't seem right then hang up and try again. (Searching the interwebs first as necessary).

What you want does sound straightforward, however, (although you might end up with two PNRs at the end of it), so a phone call would seem to be the way to go. Be clear upfront that you are only calling as the webshite isn't capable of making the booking, so you expect that the phone booking fee won't be applied.

hobbes79

Good tips everyone... sounds like a phone call is in order. I'll be in touch with the shortly... thank you!

tonrob

Get your skates on, mind - award availability has the nasty habit of evaporating right before your eyes! Good luck.

Wibblypig

Definitely call them We had to do this with Virgin last year as we had enough points for 4 peeps (there are 5 of us), the only thing we found was when allocating seats they put our 4yr old 20 rows away from us hubby did offer to sit there .... we ended up calling them to move him as we couldn't do it online as his seat was classed as a child travelling by himself and couldn't be amended online! Other than that it all went well