Buying tickets for kids from Southwest

[Wdw1015]

I'm getting ready to book our flight with Southwest but I'm not seeing where I can buy tickets for my 5 & 9 year old online. Do I have to call for them verses booking online? If so, am I correct that it's better to just book the adults that way too then?

 

[barbliny]

I'm not familiar with booking child fares on Southwest, but to answer the question regarding booking the adult tickets ...

You might as well book everyone in the same phone call. If an adult is not on the reservation for the children, I believe they are marked as unaccompanied minors and subject to those rules.

Also, if everyone is on the same reservation, it only takes one step to do online check-in for everyone in the group since there is one reservation number. Each separate reservation number requires separate check-in.

 

[Gracie09]

Most of the time the hold fare is more money than the wanna get away fare. You just buy the tickets like normal and use their information

 

[Mousemommy1]

There are no child fares. Adult is considered 2+

You can book that on line.

 

[smitch425]

https://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/family/children-pol.html

 

[smitch425]

There are no child fares. Adult is considered 2+

You can book that on line.

According to the link above, there are.

 

[Alesia]

There are no child fares. Adult is considered 2+

You can book that on line.

Southwest does offer child fares, but they are more expensive than the "wanna get away" fares that most people pay.

OP, just book your kids at regular fare - it will be cheaper.

 

[Mousemommy1]

Southwest does offer child fares, but they are more expensive than the "wanna get away" fares that most people pay.

OP, just book your kids at regular fare - it will be cheaper.

Ah yes, that's why we never booked the child fare. I haven't flown SW in awhile, JB has come in cheaper lately.

 

[Wdw1015]

You can book your kids as an adult? That sounds strange?

 

[smitch425]

You can book your kids as an adult? That sounds strange?

You just buy a seat. You still enter their ages accurately. Lol

 

[Wdw1015]

Ooohhhhh, that makes sense! Ha!

 

[g8rben]

I stumbled across this thread as I'm looking at booking SW for a November trip and we have 3 kids 11 and under. I called Southwest and the agent verified the child's fare is nearly always higher than the "Wanna Get Away" fare. It is basically the Anytime fare that is fully refundable. He said almost always it's better to just book the Wanna Get Away fare. For our trip it was $1076 for the "child's fare" or $290 for the Wanna Get Away. You decide!

 

[Wdw1015]

Wanna Get Away it is!

 

[jec6613]

You might as well book everyone in the same phone call. If an adult is not on the reservation for the children, I believe they are marked as unaccompanied minors and subject to those rules.

FYI, here are the UM rules for WN: https://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/family/unaccompanied-minors-pol.html

Unlike with the majors where you can link PNRs so people with different reservations can be marked as traveling together (and can benefit from one person's elite status benefits that way, too), WN doesn't let you do that, so if they're on their own, you'll end up with that fee as well.

And, of course, WN's child fares are a discount from full fare Y-type economy, and not a very big one. The lower bucket fares are always cheaper, so the only time a child fare makes sense is if you're booking full fare refundable tickets ... and people who book full fare fully refundable tickets (it's nearly 100% business and government) don't usually fly WN, and with children even more rarely.

 

[pooch]

Can I just ask an OT question? What does WN mean in reference to Southwest? I've seen it several times & was curious

 

[Alesia]

Can I just ask an OT question? What does WN mean in reference to Southwest? I've seen it several times & was curious

WN is Southwest's IATA code.

 

[jec6613]

WN is Southwest's IATA code.

Yep. For reference, here's a few other common ones, along with their telephony identifier (what they call their flights on the radio):

• DL: Delta Air Lines, "DELTA"
  
• UA: United Airlines, "UNITED"
• AS: Alaska Airlines, "ALASKA"
• HA: Hawaiian Airlines, "HAWAIIAN"
• AA: American Airlines, "AMERICAN"
• B6: JetBlue Airways, "JETBLUE"
• NK: Spirit Airlines, "SPIRIT WINGS"
• F9: Frontier Airlines, "FRONTIER FLIGHT"
  
• VX: Virgin America, "REDWOOD"
  
• BA: British Airways, "SPEEDBIRD"

And some defunct ones:

• CO: Continental, "CONTINENTAL"
• NW: Northwest Airlines, "NORTHWEST"
  
• US: US Airways, "CACTUS"
  
• TW: Trans World Airlines, "TWA"
  
• PA: Pan American World Airways, "CLIPPER"

 

[Carriemel]

Yep. For reference, here's a few other common ones, along with their telephony identifier (what they call their flights on the radio):

• DL: Delta Air Lines, "DELTA"
  
• UA: United Airlines, "UNITED"
• AS: Alaska Airlines, "ALASKA"
• HA: Hawaiian Airlines, "HAWAIIAN"
• AA: American Airlines, "AMERICAN"
• B6: JetBlue Airways, "JETBLUE"
• NK: Spirit Airlines, "SPIRIT WINGS"
• F9: Frontier Airlines, "FRONTIER FLIGHT"
  
• VX: Virgin America, "REDWOOD"
  
• BA: British Airways, "SPEEDBIRD"

And some defunct ones:

• CO: Continental, "CONTINENTAL"
• NW: Northwest Airlines, "NORTHWEST"
  
• US: US Airways, "CACTUS"
  
• TW: Trans World Airlines, "TWA"
  
• PA: Pan American World Airways, "CLIPPER"

And don't forget AirTran - FL - Citrus...

 

[sarmat1]

Unlike with the majors where you can link PNRs so people with different reservations can be marked as traveling together (and can benefit from one person's elite status benefits that way, too), WN doesn't let you do that, so if they're on their own, you'll end up with that fee as well.

Unless something has changed in the past year, this statement is not true. We've flown Southwest to Disney for the past 3 years each time using points which require separate bookings (and thus separate confirmation numbers) per person including the kids. In each instance of booking the kids separately, the system was smart enough to ask me if there was an adult to link the minor child to at which point I was able to input my confirmation number to link them. No UM fees and no issues whatsoever. We're flying US Air this year, so I can't speak to current Southwest policy, but I can't imagine that anything has changed.

 

[pooch]

In my experience with SWA, although booking with points creates separate conf #s, it does not require each person to be booked separately. You can book everyone together and the system will issue each a confirmation #. And when I did this with my DGS, his was linked to mine by the system, I assumed because he was a minor. This does not happen when I make reservations for DH and I.