NC Penguin

I've only read about this but yesterday I learnt firsthand about these discounted fares for passengers traveling to family for reasons of bereavement or serious illness.

My father-in-law was supposed to go into hospital for a straightfoward cardiac catheterization but ended up being told he needed to have triple bypass heart surgery.

Continental Airlines offer a direct, non-stop flight from RDU to Cleveland (where father-in-law lives) and looking on the web yesterday, flights for travel today were at least $1000.

I rang Continental to enquire about how I could get prices for an open return ticket and said in passing that this was for my spouse to travel to see his father who was about to have surgery. The lady at Continental then told me about the Compassion fare and on the spot told me that I could get this.

She checked flights for me, explained how the fare works and what information she needed in order to purchase this special fare.

The airline asked for the following:
name of patient
hospital where patient was having surgery
phone number of hospital
name of surgeon (fortunately was able to obtain this before the end of the evening)
contact number for passenger

Continental also wants the physician to provide a letter to them stating the above. The lady at Continental explained that doctors are familiar with doing this and shouldn't balk at providing such a letter.

The problem I nearly had was that I had to provide all the information verbally to the airline before the passenger checked in for the flight. Let's face it. When you hear news like this, it doesn't occur to ask for the name of the physician.

Not surprisingly, my mother-in-law did not have her cellphone switched on so I left a message but by about 10.00pm, I had the name of the physician.

Mr. NC Penguin flew out on a 10am flight to Cleveland this morning. He has a return flight booked but this can be changed at no extra cost within 60 days of his outward flight date. If it's done any later, Continental charge $100 for changing the date.

In the end we paid a little over $615 for this compassion fare. It is a "K" class of ticket (a class I'd never heard of).

If the lady at Continental had not brought this up, I doubt I would've remembered of its existence.

Englishmum

http://www.britishexpats.com/forum/s...eavement+fares


There has been a previous discussion on compassionate & bereavement fares, as you can see.

It's good to get a reminder though for those who are new to the forums or had just never seen the above thread.

Hope your relative has a speedy recovery!

NC Penguin

I do recall the thread but I've put all the information into a single message so it's faster to read!!

Father-in-law had his triple bypass this morning at 7.30am and all I know so far is that it went smoothly. I'll get the full story this evening.

Tip about choosing your hospital for surgeries:
look at the annual number of procedures performed for the specific surgery (higher the number, the better)
look at the mortality rates (lower the better of course)

doctor scrumpy

Fingers crossed for him.

justboy

This is something that nearly all airlines do and they are normally very good about it. It normally gives you a 50% off of the full fare (Y-Class) ticket!!

Duncan Roberts

Which hospital is he at?

NC Penguin

He's in Fairview, about 3 mins from where he lives and probably not too far from you either. The hospital is affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic.




NC Penguin

Duncan Roberts

Yeah it's about 5 minutes from me. It doesn't get much better than that, especially for heart related things.

DEE_UK

I just wanted to bring this up again. And it will also let the newbies on the forum know that some airlines do offer compassion fares.

It was only by chance that I came to know that Continental offered Compassion fares. I couldn't sleep late on Monday, so I was just browsing, and looking through their menu navigation...

Yesterday I booked my ticket through Continental - the lady was very helpful indeed. I've got a discounted ticket with approximately 33% off what was showing up on their website. Plus, the flexible return date (as mentioned by NC Penguin in the very first post.)

I just checked the price of my flight through Continental's website - if I had booked it today, the full price fare is over $1500! Flying from Pittsburgh to Birmingham with a change at Newark, NJ.

If I hadn't come across this, I would have had to have paid the full-fare, plus my return date is not known, so I may have ended up paying for that change too.

I just really wanted to let other people know about compassion fares. Sorry if you've come across this before.

looselips

Thanks Dee..... it's a very useful bump that is good to know ahead of time in case the unfortunate happens. Penguin - hope you father in law is still ok .

woodsey

hope he makes a speedy recovery
when we had to fly home to the UK for my grandfathers funeral British Airways told us nothing about compassionate fares so we paid $10,000 for 4 ecenomy flights to Manchester, having since discovered that they should have at least looked to see if they could reduce the cost of the flights I have complained, they have asked for a copy of his death certificate so I am hoping they may partially refund the cost of the flights but I won't hold my breathe..

mandpete

When my Nan died my Dad actually booked and paid for our tickets home the minute the funeral was arranged and didn't know about compassionate fares. We flew with Continental and when we got back to the US I asked about their policy on compassionate fares. I was told that these only applied when an immediate family member was seriously ill or had died - parent, child or sibling. So I hope you have better luck with BA than I had with Continental.

NC Penguin

It's good to bring up the topic of compassionate fares. Sadly, the onus is on the passenger to ask for these fares and not hope the airline would be kind enough to offer them to the passenger.

As for my FIL, he's doing very well. I've been giving him and the MIL tips on how to eat healthily (especially introducing more fish into their diet) and he has given up smoking so there's been some weight gain but that's to be expected when giving up the ciggies after 40+ years.



NC Penguin

NC Penguin

I truly hope that BA will give you some refund on the fares.



NC Penguin

Pimpbot

$2500 per person for economy :scared: Thats daylight robbery.