International Basic Economy with a Kid

I have officially reached the age where my memory of the world as it was makes dealing with the world as it is challenging. I simply can’t wrap my head around the idea of paying extra for a seat on a plane. Isn’t that literally what a plane ticket is supposed to get you? Even if I wasn’t opposed on moral and grammatical grounds, these days my budget gives me two choices: travel as cheaply as possible or stay home. Which is how I ended up with two basic economy tickets to Norway in April.

A Calculated Risk

As previously reported, I found basic economy fares to Norway for $716 through British Airways. (Note that the actual base fare was $206 per person – the remaining $304 is all taxes and fees that only show up when you select the flight.) The round trip fares comprised five legs operated by three airlines.

1. Seattle to London on British Airways
2. London to Oslo on British Airways
3. Oslo to Helsinki on Finnair
4. Helsinki to Chicago on Finnair
5. Chicago to Seattle on American Airlines

None of these flights include a reserved seat or a checked bag. To get these privileges for the same itinerary (what used to be called “buying a plane ticket”) I would have to purchase an Economy fare for $150 more. That would pay for a night’s lodging in Oslo or two train tickets from Oslo to Bergen. I decided to take my seating and luggage chances.

Seating Risk

Of course the airline immediately tried to up sell reserved seats. I ignored them. After all, the last time my husband flew, he refused all upgrade purchase offers until he was actually ready to board, at which time they admitted the only seats left were in Economy Plus and they seated him and his friend together. I was a mom with kid on a ten hour international flight. They had to seat us together, right? I mean nobody benefits from separating a child from their adult and sticking said child in a chair next to strangers for 10 hours.

Then I read a blog post that I can’t find now describing a situation where an airline separated a dad from his little girl and no passengers would trade seats with either of them to let them sit together. People who won’t trade seats for a little kid are not people that I want to trust to help my kid put on air mask in an emergency.

Most of the comments on the post were from people judging the dad for “not planning ahead.” As if anyone today believes that passengers can actually control their seating situation. Even the Points Guy says

There is no way to 100% ensure your family has seats together,

and then proceeds to outline a 10-point process for improving your odds.

That induced some anxiety, so I rethought my position on seating risk. I could reserve my seats for the first two legs of the trip for $48 per person and $17 per person, respectively. Those two legs alone would make the Basic Economy ticket as expensive at regular Economy. The website helpfully reminded me that I could reserve my seats for free at check-in 24 hours before the flight. I’d have to take my chances

For the Finnair legs of the flight, seats could only be reserved by calling customer service and prices were not published online. When I went online to check prices for the America Airlines leg of the trip, I discovered that we had already been assigned seats together – yay!

Seating Reward?

I set a timer on my phone to remind me to check-in exactly 24 hours before our flight to get the best chance of seats together. Fifteen minutes before my timer went off, I was at my desk, refreshing the check-in website. And….when I checked in, my seats for both flights on the way to Norway were already assigned, and we were seated together!

That only left the two Finnair legs (Oslo-Helsinki-Chicago) to worry about. I woke up early on the morning before our return flights to check in. Again, when I checked in, our seats had already been assigned for all flights and they were together. The risk paid off.

Luggage Risk

When I booked the tickets, the risk I was really worried about was the luggage question. I travel pretty light, but 10 days in a country that still has snow on the ground requires more and heavier clothing. Could I fit everything in two carry-ons? If I tried packing once we were close enough to traveling to have a weather forecast, and I couldn’t fit everything, how much would a suitcase cost me?

From what I could tell online, British Airways charges $55 advance and $60 at the airport per suitcase for Basic Economy fares. I’m not naive enough to think that a round trip ticket counts as one, so it would be at least $110 to bring a suitcase. That’s a little less than the extra cost of a standard economy fare, so the risk might be worth it.

My fear, however, is linked to the warning on my ticket:

If you do not check your bags through to your final destination you may incur additional charges

Because bags are always properly checked through just as passengers request, aren’t they? Not to mention the smaller print warning:

Your ticket includes flights on other airlines, you must contact each airline individually to check the applicable baggage allowance/fees on their flight.

Even if my bag checks through to my final destination, I might be charged $60 for BA’s flights to Oslo, $60 for Finnair’s flights to Chicago and $60 for American’s flight to Seattle. I’d almost rather wear the same clothes for a week than pay $180-$300 to use a suitcase.

Luggage Reward?

A few days before our departure, I spent an hour digging through the websites of all three airlines, checking for their carry-on luggage restrictions. Of course, they all used different maximum dimensions, so my luggage would have to be smaller than the strictest minimum in all three.

I measured both of our wheelie carry-on suitcases, my daughter’s school backpack (her personal item) and a brown shoulder bag I’ve used as my carry-on since before I had kids. They all met the requirements.

Then I checked the 10-day weather forecast for every city we planned to visit, dialed back a bit on the winterwear, and did a practice pack of everything we planned to bring. My shoulder bag was pretty heavy, but everything fit. We even had one side of one carry-on mostly empty for presents.

In the event, it was a lot of bags to schlep around. I sorely missed my checked-luggage only backpack when we were dragging rollies across cobblestones. But through three airlines and five airports, no one even blinked at how much stuff we were carrying.

Conclusion

Traveling basic economy is definitely a risk. If things had worked out other than they did – if my daughter had been stuck 10 rows away from me on a 10 hour flight, or if we’d gotten stuck with hundreds of dollars of baggage fees – I would definitely have regretted the gamble.

But everything worked out fine, and for the difference we saved in airfare, I was able to upgrade to a proper hotel room with a comfy bed for our last two nights in Norway. I’m still kind of pissed that such a thing even exists. But this time, I’m glad we flew basic economy.