W9London

Does anyone know if BA has bereavement fares? International flights?. Flexibility (ability to change dates and no requirement for saturday night stayover) is more important than the costs. Can't find anything on their website. TIA.

Swanhunter

Sorry to hear you are in need of one.

I don't believe BA offer anything like this as it is pretty much a North America only concept. However a call to BA would be the best way to find out.

henkybaby

Maybe you should try AA: http://www.aa.com/i18n/utility/bereavementFares.jsp

Sorry too. Good luck.

henkybaby

See also this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...lp-needed.html

GaryK84

The only time I was in a situation like this was I was told that my father was going to pass away very soon and I needed to get to HEL on the next flight from LHR. BA offered a flex Y fare for Ł1,200 and AY for about Ł800; I went for the latter. In hindsight I've thought that I should have perhaps mentioned more about the circumstances when I called the airlines, but as I didn't, I'm not sure if bereavement fares are available...

HIDDY

Sorry to hear your need for one.

However if cost isn't a factor why not just book a normal fully flexible ticket?

BA6501

I'm sure that cost is a "factor", just not at all an important one.

The only time I have needed something like this was to get to BEY from BOD. Was on AF, and no such fares mentioned.

Sorry to hear about this, may (s)he rest in peace.

HilFly

BA used to offer a bereavement ticket (not sure if that's what it was called) for which they would waive the advance purchase requirement.

I was told earlier this year by a BAEC agent that they no longer offer this.

You could try calling BA to see if they can accomodate your needs somehow.

indianwells

Did they say why? I think it's regrettable they no longer offer this. When something such as this comes along it would be a real help, one less thing to worry about at an extremely stressful time. As long as proof is given I really don't see a problem and it would simply be a very nice, and right thing to do.Sympathies to the OP.

stuart101

some airlines actually quote you the most expensive ticket if you say you are bereaved and NEED to get to XXX.

Globaliser

My sympathies to the OP as well.

I'm a professional cynic (= lawyer) so my guess should itself be taken with a healthy dose of cynicism. But my suspicion is too many people were lying to the airline to get a discount. The difficulty with requiring proof in advance is that it may be difficult to get something genuine at short notice if the patient is still alive, but easy to provide a forgery that the airline cannot check. Requiring proof afterwards is probably pretty pointless. How much effort is the airline going to expend chasing the individual for a relatively small difference in fair if proof doesn't turn up despite requests (and no doubt endless excuses along the lines of "it's in the post")? Remember, it's not the genuine cases that will do this but those who were trying to pull a fast one to start off with.

I've been in a similar situation. I know that with the trauma that my family were going through with a 13-year old on the verge of death, it would have been quite unreasonable to ask them to rustle up some sort of medical certificate within a couple of hours just so that I could get a discount on my travel. And if I had been travelling after he'd died, it would have been just as bad; they were running around trying to find a plot in a cemetery, funeral directors who had capacity, etc etc. So I just bought a one-way full Y and sorted out the mess afterwards.

I can't believe that my experience was unusual; but if it's common, it makes it very difficult for the airline to do something nice without laying itself wide open to fraud.

HIDDY

^

My thoughts as well I'm afraid.
Sad fact of life that the many genuine cases have to suffer at the hands of the greedy few.

Crampedin13A

This is 18 years ago so it probably isn't too relevant but I was given about 6 hours notice that my father was not going to make it through the night. I was the only one in my family not living in the U.K. so I was in an awkward situation to get back. I phoned BA explained the situation and asked the agent for a bereavement fare. It was incredible the agent said not to worry, said there were seats available on the next flight in 3 hours from YYZ-LHR asked me for my dates and gave me probably the cheapest discounted WT fare I'd ever heard of. I asked what paperwork they required and she said none would be required. I couldn't believe that an airline could be so compassionate when I could have just been some con artist trying to take advantage. I'll never forget that BA looked after me that way. It was too late when I arrived in England anyway but I kind of knew that on the flight over.

My sympathies to the OP. It's not an enviable situation to be in.

Globaliser

You don't ever forget it when an airline helps you out.

Having said that, though, much does depend on what bookings look like anyway. Today, it's much more common to find that even the cheapest economy fares require no advance purchase (with revenue/yield management done just by booking class manipulation), and also that even the cheapest economy fares have a degree of flexibility for the return.

So, for example, if you had to fly to HKG tomorrow, you can't currently buy any ticket on BA and elsewhere it would have to be business class. But you could fly BA to BKK in V class and DXB in N class without having to ask for any favours.

HilFly

Unfortunately I have had to use bereavement fares. When I booked them I was asked to produce a death certificate at check in for the return journey.