Bereavement Fares

November 30, 2004 10:08 AM

TravelFilter: My Partner's Grandmother passed away this morning. He is driving out (ME to OK) with his family today, but needs to fly home ahead of the rest of them to be back at work on Monday. Are there other online of super-cheap airfares besides "the big three"? Am I doomed to spending every spare moment for the next three days researching airfare prices?
posted by anastasiav to Travel & Transportation (16 answers total)

Priceline. Short notice stuff like this is when it's best. I flew round-trip to Helsinki for 300 bucks because I waited five days before I left.
posted by Mayor Curley at 10:12 AM on November 30, 2004

Make sure that you include Logan and even Manchester in your return-- not many flights and not many carriers into Portland. As you probably know, that 45 minute jump between Logan and Portland can add $250 to the "value" of a flight.
posted by Mayor Curley at 10:15 AM on November 30, 2004

Best answer: If it's not too obvious, expanding the search from Dallas, KC, or St. Louis will open up quite a few options. You can get from Tulsa or OKC (depending on which is closer) to any of those three for a steal using either SouthWest or American Eagle. You're options will be pretty limited trying to get from Oklahoma to the NE directly.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:25 AM on November 30, 2004

You may know this already, but most airlines have bereavement and compassion policies, under which they offer discounted fares. These vary from airline to airline, so you will have to contact them directly for more details.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:45 AM on November 30, 2004

monju_bosatsu's got it. Figure out which airlines have flights at the times you want, and then call them directly to ask about bereavement fares. They're available for short-notice flights, at least. You'll need to get some evidence of actual bereavement -- a note from the undertaker, death certificate, etc, should do it.
posted by spacewrench at 10:56 AM on November 30, 2004

Be sure to check out SmarterLiving.

They gather web fares and specials from the airlines, and you can find where the good deals are.

Also, as mentioned above, check out Southwest. Their fares usually aren't listed anywhere online other than their website, so be sure to check them out.
posted by stovenator at 11:00 AM on November 30, 2004

Hearing great things about JetBlue.
posted by rfordh at 11:02 AM on November 30, 2004

Some gotchas about bereavement fares -- usually you have to buy a full-price ticket up front and get the discount on the back end. And by full-price, I mean full price, e.g. the highest price they charge for that route. The "discounted" price you wind up with can be higher than whatever discounted price you could find without the added hassle of proving it qualifies for a bereavement fare.
posted by briank at 11:16 AM on November 30, 2004

I had great luck with Mobissimo earlier this week after reading about them on Wired.
posted by ..ooOOoo....ooOOoo.. at 12:06 PM on November 30, 2004

Priceline and Hotwire are both good. briank is right about bereavement fares - I've called and asked for one before and been quoted a significantly higher fare than the web-based discounted fares I was able to locate on my own.

JetBlue and Southwest are also good options, as mentioned before, but you have to book on their websites directly because they're not listed on the big travel sites like Travelocity. They both have very good last-minute fares, but as Ufez Jones said, you might need to expand your search to nearby airports, as they don't fly to as many cities as some of the other airlines.

also, try ITN. It's run by American Express travel. I ran a quick search with it and wasn't finding anything cheaper than the big 3 were offering, though.
posted by bedhead at 1:40 PM on November 30, 2004

One other thing - since he's flying back on a last-minute, one-way fare, he should get to the departing airport early, because he is almost guaranteed to encounter additional screening. I fly 80k miles per year on average, and the only time I got flagged for additional security screening this year was the one time I bought a one-way ticket (for a one-hour flight, even).
posted by bedhead at 1:46 PM on November 30, 2004

bedheadcan'tshutupfilter - If one-way fares are too much, you can buy a round-trip and just not use the second leg. Sometimes this helps - illogical as it sounds, some airfares are cheaper if they're round-trip and not one-way, especially the ones listed on SmarterLiving.
posted by bedhead at 1:55 PM on November 30, 2004

Best answer: I just checked southwest.com: a one-way ticket from Tulsa to Manchester, Sunday December 4th, 1 p.m. departure (arrives 7:45 p.m.), costs $253, and is fully refundable. (Although Southwest does fly out of Oklahoma City, the website said there are no flights on the 4th due to a "temporary schedule modification".)

Also, Site59 claims to be the "leader in technology and creative content for last-minute online travel"; I have no idea if that is true.
posted by WestCoaster at 2:29 PM on November 30, 2004

Unless you are flying within less than three days, the major airlines' bereavement fares are unlikely to be cheaper than the discount fares available. And possibly not even then.
posted by grouse at 3:39 PM on November 30, 2004

kayak.com compares fares from most airlines. I found a good Christmas flight rate there.
posted by LeiaS at 4:46 PM on November 30, 2004

Response by poster: Thanks for all the help. The tip about Flying from OKC to Dallas then home is proving to be espeically helpful!
posted by anastasiav at 7:30 AM on December 1, 2004