Must travel soon and urgently need information concerning Bereavement Fares ?

I got some terrible news today concerning the death of a child abroad from Leukemia who will be buried abroad on Saturday.

Does anyone have some information about bereavement fares when close relatives pass away ? I need to fly to Budapest, Zagreb or Milan on Thursday or Friday (and will take a train from there) and fly home Monday. This is all very sudden and the ticket costs are very high. Someone suggested that some airlines have bereavement fares, something I never heard of before.

Any advice please ?

Hi bullworth,

My condolences, I'm very sorry to hear this sad news and I hope that you can sort out the travel arrangements. I don't know anything about this type of flight myself and the only thing I can find at the moment is on Google.

Hopefully others here will be able to give some further advice/help.

It totally depends on the airline...some offer them and some don't. You will need to contact them directly and see if they apply them. Be prepared to be asked for proof of death and also of relation to the deceased...again airlines have varying policies on who they apply to.

Bereavement fares are an American concept and an old one at that. No European airline that I know of offers them as standard. Maybe a travel agent might be able to help.

Aer Lingus are probably your best bet. I know that used to do them for TransAtlantic flights before 9/11 but I'm not sure if they've continued the practice up to now.

I think these have been largely done away with at this stage.

It used to be the case that for TransAtlantic flight you would pay for a one-way last minute ticket and still get a return ticket - but this was still higher than the normal return fare ticket by about IRL£200 at the time.

You're best bet is probably to trawl the sites like Skyscanner and Kayak and hope that there's some last minute deal for you to avail of.

I got a flight with aer lingus to dubrovnik. i ve never been there before but wont have time to look at the scenery as I need to find a connection out of there to Zadar and beyond ..

can anyone take some pressure off me by telling me if i have to print out my boarding pass for aer lingus ? Im assuming they treat customers better than ryanair does. I fly tomorrow morning and so far I just have a reference number.

You can check in at Dublin and print your boarding pass form one of the easy check in machines. There are numerous of them around.