Question about flying with kids

[Amarie]

I have a 5 year old and was told that with Southwest I can choose to have my child sit on my lap for the flight to avoid buying an extra ticket, as long as she stays on my lap for the entire flight. Is this true? Or how much are child fares relative to the "Wanna Get Away ticket price"?

[basslaw2010 · Accepted solution]

That is not true. Only children under 2 years old can be a lap child. Also, the Wanna Get Away fares are the same price regardless of age. There are child fares for Anytime fares but that will still be more expensive than the Wanna Get Away fare. Lastly, don't forget that with your 5 year old you can family board after the A group.

[DancingDavidE]

Under two years old for lap children, and you'll have to provide a birth certificate or other documentation for that or any of the other age verified tickets.

[Amarie]

Gotcha, thank you!

[DancingDavidE]

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@Amarie wrote:

Gotcha, thank you!

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The "child fare" is flexible, some people like the idea to have ability to refund the child ticket if something were to change with the kid's schedule, and maybe a kid has less ability to use travel funds if the ticket was cancelled compared to the adults flying more frequently.

I mostly hear of people booking their > 2 year old kids with Wanna Get Away, that's what we do for our own 2 year old. But we do also fly enough that we'd be able to use any travel funds in her name within a year easily if we did have to cancel for some reason, I know some kids may not fly as often and the refundabiliy would be desirable.

Another idea if you want flexiblity is to book the kid with your points, which would be refunded back to your account if you canceled the ticket, as opposed to travel funds if you paid cash.