Need a quick ticket for a funeral
 

Hey everyone,

I need to fly lax-pbi for a funeral this week. I still don't know when the funeral will be. Do airlines still give rebates for fights like this? If so, what would i have to provide as proof? Thanks for any information!


John

Contact the airline, but most funeral flight tickets are still not a good buy. Your best bet would be to use your (or a friend's?) FF miles for an award ticket.

NWA will give you the 21 day advance purchase price for a funeral. Call the reservation line and have the name/number of the funeral home handy, and the name of the person. They will call and verify, then give you the discount. No rebate required.

No rebates, but rather, airlines call it a "compassionate fare" or something of that sort. Had to do it once with AC, they required documentation of the funeral service or they will verify. The fares ended up to be around 50% of the lowest bucket at that time.

What day and when do you want to return? Perhaps some of us in the FT community can find a good fare for you online.

I used Site 59 for a funeral. Last minute but must be 5 days or less and include a weekend. Must be air/hotel or air/car.

Otherwise do a bid on Priceline to save money.

Thanks MileageAddict, the funeral arrangements are still being made, i will probably know something Monday or Tuesday. The morning before i heard the bad news, i booked a flight back to my hometown plus an extra leg to Chicago, then back to LA all for like $400, 3 wks out. The lady at Delta was amazed at how good of a price i got. Jeez.

Compassionate fares are not really very good. When my Mother died, it would have cost $10,000.00+ for five of us to fly SEA/SRQ on a coach compassionate fare. :(

Fortunately, we were able to get five award seats on NWA, using AS miles, IIRC.

Probably don't need to say this, but don't limit your searches to just LAX and PBI...even though it may be an inconvenience, it could be scores cheaper if you considered SNA, LGB, ONT and FLL, even MIA. ;)

FLL could be key, because I believe WN flies there. Not sure about PBI.

Breaved My Wallet!
 

My last (ad)venture into the realm of quick tickets was no better than most....

Bereavement fares are but a slightly more modest violation sans lubricant than full fares, so this is one of those occasions when Priceline might be worth a try. MY last go-round of this sort got me there and back for $200, only requiring an extra night along the way and a circuitous route, $200 vs. almost $1,000 for an over the counter seat. ;)

WN's fares are around 300 OW LAX to Florida. Also, install DING! from their site and see if you can get a decent deal over the next couple of days.

Found a $389 RT on 24 hrs notice with 2 stops on the departing, and 1 stop on the return. Can you co-mingle United miles with US Air/America West miles? Last time i flew US Air i was 8 years old.

BTW, my friend died in a car accident on the way home from the sleaziest strip club in West Palm Beach. He wouldnt have wanted it any other way, he would also want me to tell everyone that that's how he died, hence this paragraph that has nothing to do with airline travel.

The last time i flew was 3 days before the liquid incident. Let's see what happens tonight in terms of security.