How we booked our flights with points // Our experience with an infant
When we travel first or business class, we wonder which passengers paid cash rate for their seats vs points (i.e. who looks like they’re credit card savvy?). When we see people traveling first or business class with children, we really start to wonder if it’s by cash or points. Of course, we are a travel-by-points family through and through.
Shortly after our first international trip to Tokyo sans-kids last year, I asked Sherry where would she want to go next. She quickly replied “Paris, and I want to take baby girl.” (She was pregnant with her at the time, and she had probably just finished watching another season of Emily in Paris. If that show hasn’t increased tourism, I don’t know what will.) At that moment, my mission was to find the best way to travel hack to Paris for 2 with an infant. Our last trip to Europe was back in our 2019, our first babymoon to Santorini, Greece and Rome, Italy where we depleted hundreds of thousands of points to fly Lufthansa first class there and business class back. It wasn’t the best value, per se, but it was so worth it – especially in hindsight since the pandemic hit the following year, and we weren’t unloading any more points to travel abroad.
Per usual, I looked at the cash value of the flights:
Plus, I looked at the cost of economy class tickets just for good measure.
Now that we’ve seen the numbers, let’s get back to the good stuff.
Best Flight Options with Points
The two best ways to fly direct from LAX to CDG are via Air France and Delta One via Virgin Atlantic. Each cost 50,000 airline points that can be transferred from Chase or Amex MR. Air France applies fuel surcharges to the customer while Delta One does not, so we, of course, prefer Delta One to minimize cost. Virgin Atlantic also allows a lap infant for 10% of the award points value.
It cost 100,000 Virgin Atlantic points + $146 in surcharges for a round-trip Delta One (business class) from LAX to CDG at a $10,000 value. A lap infant cost 10,000 points plus nominal fees. In the end, our round trip for 2 adults plus an infant cost 210,000 points + $400 in fees. Retail value is $20,000+.
+ 10,000 points per infant
How to Get 2 Business Class Round Trip Flights (valued at $20k+) with 1 Credit Card Bonus
We applied for the Amex Platinum card with 150,000 bonus points. The public offer for this card is 80,000 points. But with the “incognito trick” by right-clicking the amex platinum or a referral link and opening an incognito window, 150,000 bonus points should eventually pop up. It may take a few iterations. Please don’t sign up for anything less than 125,000.
American Express and Chase offer 30% transfer bonuses to Virgin Atlantic every few months. We transferred points over to Virgin Atlantic with the 30% bonus. 161,538 Amex MR points * 1.3 = 210,000 Virgin Atlantic points. So,1 Amex Platinum bonus (150,000) and some organic spend can get enough points for the 3 of us.
How to Book the Flights
Thankfully, there are many tools to search for award flights. The downside is that since it’s much easier to search and book, and there are many travel influencers and travel content creators, it is extremely competitive. I use this site specifically for my itinerary: https://seats.aero/deltaone.
When LAX to CDG opened up, I used the Virgin Atlantic app and booked the flight directly. Once I found the return flight, I chatted online with Virgin Atlantic to help me book the return flight and combine the flight together. Then, I added the lap infant ticket.
Biz Class Experience with a 9mo Infant
Let’s not sugarcoat it. Flying with an infant is not easy. As frequent travelers with 3 littles under 5, our experience is that flying with babies under 6 months is among the easier times to do so. They still sleep through the majority of the day. They’re not too active, and they’re so content being coddled in your arms. When they cry, milk or a pacifier will usually do the trick to soothe them.
(Of course, this isn’t the case for all children – this is simply our experience!)
On these business class flights to and from Paris, we flew with our 9-month-old, who was not as easy to please. Although we had a night flight flying out of LAX, she cried quite a bit during the initial hours until she was tired enough to fall asleep. And yes, I felt terrible for our fellow passengers who endured the cries. The good thing is that most of them had headphones/earplugs in, and there’s so much space between our seats and the next ones over. No one said anything (though I’m sure there were many not-so-pleasant thoughts), and the kind flight attendants asked us if we needed anything to help comfort our baby. We appreciated them immensely.
Once our baby slept, we could appreciate the spaciousness these Delta One seats offered – large enough for us to lie down and co-sleep comfortably.
On our return trip, she snoozed for maybe one hour out of the 11+ hour trip. I didn’t get to rest at all, but instead of using our lie-down seats to sleep, we took advantage of the extra space for her to crawl and stand. (The big difference between < 6 months infant and > 6 months! These older babies have to move around so much.)
All in all, flying business class with an infant is still a plus and worthwhile at a 10% points redemption value. We wouldn’t do it with our older kids since that’s another 100k points per kid – and we all know they’d still end up in mommy’s seat. (Once they turn 2 years old, each kid is an entire seat’s cost.) Only two years to take advantage of free/minimal cost flights with these kids! Although the traveling part isn’t easy, we take advantage of the limited opportunity.