No Aeroplan Infant Tickets on Air China
Aeroplan has had a love-hate relationship with Air China for the past couple years, with technical difficulties blocking bookings with Air China. Air China recently became bookable with Aeroplan. However, I recently had a client with my award booking company, Awarding Canada, who wanted to book an infant ticket on an Aeroplan booking with Air China.
What happened?
To make this booking, I called Aeroplan to issue the infant ticket. However, the agent was unable to confirm the infant ticket and had to call the ticketing department. That office said it was impossible to book infant tickets on Air China. I spoke with a supervisor. She indicated that Aeroplan was unable to book Air China infant tickets because Air China only accepts paper tickets for infants, and Air Canada, Aeroplan’s ticket issuing agent, stopped issuing paper tickets a couple months ago.
Aeroplan’s Response
If you read the Aeroplan Terms and Conditions, they reference the possibility of issuing paper tickets, and there are no restrictions on infant tickets. I emailed my contact at Aeroplan. This is what they said:
Aeroplan reward tickets are issued by Air Canada. According to IATA and some recent interline agreements, airlines such as Air Canada have moved towards paperless travel and do not offer paper tickets to be issued on Air China. We are in the process of updating our website accordingly and apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Members have the following two options:
- Book a regular Aeroplan reward (pay the full amount in miles for an adult) or
- Purchase a revenue e-ticket for the infant.
For option #2, you would need to call Air China at 1-800-882-8122 and reference your Air China booking number to have them book a revenue infant ticket directly.
So it looks like you cannot book Aeroplan infant tickets for any reservation involving Air China through Aeroplan. I’d say this is hugely troubling – you could have a large mini-RTW booking, and if there’s even a single Air China segment, it appears that an infant ticket cannot be booked through Aeroplan.
Not surprising that air CHINA would not allow an infant ticket:)
Air China using paper ticket is absolutely incorrect. I have booked infant ticket through United, Lufthansa and Air China. E-ticket issued no problem.
That’s the issue as explained to me by supervisor and my Aeroplan contact
My infant ticket through air China a year ago was on paper, can confirm it as a pain in the bum. Many agents were confused how to handle it.
The paper infant ticket was used for every segment on the journey
Having recently flown Air China YUL-PEK-HND and back, one of the interesting things I noticed, was that Air China insists on paper ticket on their own paper stock. They had the Air China ticket stock in YUL, however I had a PEK-YUL ticket issued in Haneda on whatever was the regular paper stock there, and I was forced to exchange it in PEK for a different (identical in all other respects) ticket.
Air China is weirdly obsessed with the paper tickets.
Situation is still unchanged 1+ year later … no mention on the Aeroplan website whatsoever, the supervisor acknowledge this is a known policy for years and has nothing to offer in terms of solution. Too bad I didn’t remember this post while planning my award booking, now back to square one to find availability on carriers with no YQ, no LX because of AE IT issues, etc… options are soooo limited.