The Thrifty Traveler Podcast · Thursday, September 10, 2026
Alaska Airlines has significantly improved its policy for adding lap infants to award bookings. Previously, adding a lap infant to an award ticket required a phone call and an unclear fee structure, often involving a percentage of the cash fare or a flat mileage fee. Now, passengers can simply pay the applicable taxes and fees, and this change extends to all Alaska Mileage Plan partners, not just Alaska or Hawaiian Airlines flights.
“For a long time Alaska's policy was really infuriating. You couldn't add an infant online at all. Uh, they got, you know, their website would just explicitly tell you, 'We don't do infant award tickets.' You would have to call and figure and figure it out and then someone would tell you what you're gonna pay once you're on the phone.”
“Uh, now it's just the taxes and fees for all bookings book with Alaska Atmos. The big change is it used to be just for Alaska or Hawaii operated flights. Now it's for all partners too.”
“So whether you're using Alaska miles to fly Alaska or Hawaii or Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong or Qatar Airways to the Middle East. Yeah, it's a really, really great update to this program.”