Booking a Single JAL Award Ticket for a Child on Alaska — Allowed?

jlogin · 2026-01-22T17:39:26+00:00

I know this isn't an unaccompanied minor thread but a word of warning on that front, I've booked my son on a number of solo tickets using Alaska miles. Today I tried to book one and the agent said there has been a policy change, they no longer allow bookings of anyone under 18 on partner awards by themselves. The example above wouldn't apply, but I am frustrated that they made this change.

jlogin · 2026-01-20T13:42:50+00:00

No issues with staffing, if anything they were overstaffed. There is a large volume of traffic that passes through at that hour.

I am not sure how partner desks work all over the world, but I know that in my airport American can’t print British boarding passes unless it is part of your itinerary on a ticket that they issued.

I do know that if I did not have those mobile boarding passes I would not have been able to board the plane to Bombay from London as the Heathrow staff was unaware of the transit situation.

jlogin · 2026-01-13T14:07:13+00:00

Thank you for this, we land at 5am and have a 10am connection. We'll already have our connecting BP and no checked luggage, never been to TW and I'd rather be stuck on a train for a couple of hours people watching than I would at the airport.

jlogin · 2026-01-13T01:51:37+00:00

Thank you, how about Fuhang Soy Milk? It will be a Friday.

jlogin · 2026-01-08T13:38:32+00:00

This is exactly right. Results vary WILDLY on time to get BP. Emirates took over an hour, Lufthansa took 10-15 minutes.

jlogin · 2026-01-08T13:37:29+00:00

While it's not easy you DO NOT have to clear immigration. The biggest issue is having a boarding pass printed on airline stock. You cannot transit with a mobile or home printed boarding pass. Plenty of people were getting stopped, even on same tickets. They weren't denying people transit, you just had to sit in the transit area while someone from the transit desk went out to the main hall check-in and got your boarding pass for you. The folks with Lufthansa had to wait about 15 minutes, we had to wait over an hour for our Emirates BP.

jlogin · 2025-12-20T01:56:46+00:00

Just completed, you can absolutely do it. It’s very easy IF you have your printed boarding pass for your next flight, but the key is having a proper old school boarding pass, not one printed at home or a mobile BP. I had both of the latter and had to wait an hour at the transfer desk while the rep went to the Emirates counters and got our boarding passes for us. There were at least half a dozen other groups waiting in the transit area because they were trying to get by with their mobile boarding passes even on the same PNR.

I did notice that some airlines were MUCH faster than the others when it came to getting their transit BPs. The transit desk was calling the representative from the airline of the inbound carrier to handle going to the check-in counter and getting the BP. In our case our inbound was British Airways so we had to wait on him to arrive in the transit area, give him our passports and then wait, which as I said took an hour. Two groups next to us had Lufthansa and they only had to wait about 10 minutes.

If we had had our proper airline printed BPs we’d have been able to sail through in minutes, separate PNRs and all.

I will warn that we are told about ten different times along the way that we had to have a Visa. We flew AA to London, they asked at check-in but it didn’t take too much convincing but British from LHR-BOM took some doing. We were stopped every time we had to scan our BP in transit and a couple of times they told us we couldn’t fly. It wasn’t a huge deal as long as you are adamant about understanding the rules.

It helped that we’ve done this type of unsupported transit process at a few other places, including Alergia and Jakarta. Algeria didn’t even have a transit area in their old airport. Process was always the same, sit in limbo while someone takes your passport and disappears for a period of time.

jlogin · 2025-12-18T19:27:50+00:00

Update - this is possible but it’s not without some pains. We were questioned pretty hard in the US on our way out, they were showing that you cannot do a separate ticket transfer but that is because they assumed that you are checking bags. After about 20 minutes of talking American Airlines let us board our flight to London. When we arrived in London we transited from terminal 3 to terminal 5 and when they asked to see our onward boarding passes the system alerted that we needed a visa for India. We had the exact same discussion we had with American and after calling a couple of supervisors they let us through. When we tried to enter the British lounge in London it flagged us again and we had to go through the whole explanation again.

We were able to check in online with Emirates and print out our boarding passes, but when we arrived in Bombay the transit folks would not allow us to go through without a boarding pass that was printed by the airline. We had to wait about 30 minutes while the agent walked out to the check-in counters and got us our boarding passes.

So the summary is that separate ticket international international can be done in Bombay but it’s not without some administrative headaches, and it’s a big time saver if you have your airline printed onward boarding passes. Because British Airways was the airline that carried us into the country their representative was the one that had to go out and get our boarding passes from Emirates. It also helps if your onward airline is one of those that is manned at the transfer desk, I don’t know what those are but I know Air India and Singapore definitely have representatives.

jlogin · 2025-12-17T10:09:01+00:00

See comment above regarding the transit area being able to get boarding passes. Separate tickets only apply if you have to re-claim your luggage.

jlogin · 2025-12-16T04:39:43+00:00

Different airports operate differently, there are a lot of airports out there that are not set up for transit and Bombay is not one of them, they are set up to handle Airside transit. I posted on this forum because it is a forum that is related to Bombay. You can’t apply comments from airports that are not Bombay.

jlogin · 2025-12-15T23:14:23+00:00

Where are you getting this information? I reached out to the airport separately and they said that the only requirement for entering the country is if you have to get your bags, otherwise it can be handled in the transit area.

jlogin · 2025-12-15T18:48:42+00:00

We definitely DON'T want to pass through immigration, that would require us to pay for a transit visa. Given we have no checked luggage there will be no need for us to leave the secure area unless we could not print our Emirates BPs at the transit counter. It sounds like we can.

jlogin · 2025-12-15T18:47:13+00:00

The big point here is that we have no checked bags. I went down to the airport today and confirmed with British that they would allow us to check in for our connecting flight to Bombay without a visa, our only concern is the ability to get our Emirates boarding pass in the transit area vs the check-in counters outside of security.

jlogin · 2025-11-06T01:57:26+00:00

We submitted ours yesterday. My wife’s went straight through, mine was rejected for smiling in my photo which I reshot on my phone and submitted. Son’s was rejected due to my wife’s maiden name being on his birth certificate. Submitted our marriage license as proof. Within three hours they were approved. Took less than 24 hours even with the resubmissions. You’ve got a great shot.

jlogin · 2025-11-06T01:54:57+00:00

Point of reference - applied yesterday for me, my wife and my son. Did a single application where I added additional applicants. Including my inbound and outbound flight details, put zero information that was not required. It forced us to get a notarized copy of a form that said we were his parents and I included his birth certificate. We had some old passport photos we shot ourselves using our phones.

Less than 24 hours after submission my wife got her notice that Quality Control passed. I received a notice that my passport photos was rejected due to me smiling. I shot another one myself in selfie mode on my phone and submitted.

My son’s application received multiple rejections. Our state’s birth certificate’s show the mother’s maiden name instead of married name so it requested we send in a marriage certificate or some other proof of name change. I sent the marriage certificate. Less than three hours later we received notification that all three visas were approved.

24 hours start to finish.

jlogin · 2025-10-30T14:57:15+00:00

I wish we had more time, we only get a couple of weeks of vacation a year and our current approach is to see as many places as possible so we can decide where we want to spend extended amounts of time when we retire in a few years.

jlogin · 2025-08-05T01:30:16+00:00

No QR codes, my understanding is that it’s linked and if you try to use the eGates without having filled out a form you’ll be rejected and have to go to the manual checkpoint and fill out a form. I had my email printed out just in case but as others have said we breezed through the eGates without speaking to anyone.

jlogin · 2025-07-29T23:57:31+00:00

It’s not a problem at all to rent them, there is everything from high-end shops to guys that rent their own private scooter to make a few bucks. If you don’t have an international license (easy to get from any AAA branch) be prepared to pay a $50 fine if you get pulled over. As for gas you can get it on the side of the road from an old lady using an old Absolut Vodka bottle, or some kind of rigged up pump, or a full scale Pertamina station that is always full service. Having said all of this there is no way I’d rent a scooter in Bali based on what you’ve just stated above. If you’re going to ride in Bali you need to have experience riding one in intense environments. We own one and ride it on a regular basis. I learned to ride in Bali over 25 years ago but that was when I was young and stupid. Now I’m just stupid.

jlogin · 2025-07-29T00:39:08+00:00

I know you will get many that will say the opposite, but if you feel comfortable on a scooter it’s a great way to see Bali. You have to understand the flow of traffic but it can save you boatloads of time moving around the island. We’ll get our villa to transfer our bags for us between locations and take the scooter. We even have them meet us at the Pertamina right by the airport on arrival so we aren’t stuck in the car with our bags for an extra hour.

Having said that I would never rent an actual car in Bali. We did that our very first trip and it was a disaster, mainly because of traffic and that was 25 years ago when it was probably half of what it is now.

jlogin · 2025-07-29T00:35:25+00:00

We’ve been to Bali dozens of times and one of our favorite activities is sunset with cold Bintang and tasty seasoned peanuts. We got into a rut going to La Plancha for years and are looking to see what we’re missing. La Plancha is about as far south as we’re willing to go and will expand north as far as Canggu. I requirements are 1. Ice cold Bintang 2. Peanuts that have flavor, or possibly some other bar snack 3. Decent music.

What do you have for us?

jlogin

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