We've used American Airlines a couple of times--one for a funeral (Dallas to Omaha) and one for an emergency hospitalization (Little Rock to Rochester MN). They asked for the name and funeral home for the bereavement fare and the name and hospital for the second. We also were told that they would do "whatever it took" to get us on the airplane when we needed to go to Mayo, implying that they would bump someone for us. Call and talk to someone now and get the information you need--also their name as a contact.

My mom had a ticket to visit us, but my uncle (her brother) died, and she needed to change the ticket to come earlier in order to get to the funeral. American was so awful. They made her pay the change fee, they made her pay the difference in ticket costs, which being last-minute was quite significant. They were most unhelpful and she was very upset. Contrast that to a few years later, when my parents had to do something similar with Southwest tickets after my grandmother died. They let us change everything, gave us credits, were nice as can be.

sfamylou, Southwest is so easy to work with. I have had to cancel flights a few times and at no charge I am given a credit to fly at a later date.

I will say that NW were wonderful last June when my daughter & SIL had to fly to Rome due to his father dying last year. The tickets were not cheap but I couldn't have asked for more accomodating reps. The same situation when they had to postpone leaving Rome for two weeks, again NW was wonderful.

Litespeed, I am sorry for what you are going through. I hope you work out a flight to your satisfaction. Best wishes to you and your family.

The Southwest suggestion is a good one ($309 one-way maximum fare I think, completely changeable and refundable). America West (soon to be USAir) has had surprisingly cheap one-way fares even at the last minute in my experience. In 2003 I needed to grab one for a family emergency and it worked out fine.

I would also explore nearby airports and the option of a train to finish the connection or renting a car one-way and paying a drop-off fee, if any. Some airports are simply much cheaper to fly into last-minute than others, and a five hour car ride to save several hundred bucks may be worth it to some.

Priceline and Hotwire would be my next choices. I don't think you can get the good airfare deals with them anymore that you could say five years ago, but it might be worth a shot. Even though you might have to book a round-trip ticket, that could be cheaper than doing a one-way on your own and you could just throw away the return if you have to.

(And Priceline's written policy is up to ONE connection each way, so you won't get "a bunch of layovers.")

The bereavement fare would be my last choice because it is so expensive, although, to be fair, it is completely changable.

Andrew

The reason some of us mentioned, and checked prices on, AirTran but not Southwest is that the OP is trying to go from Greenville, SC to Chicago. The closest airport that Southwest in the area is RDU (250mi), which is significantly further than Charlotte (100mi) for the OP.

Driving to RDU is over 1/3 the way to Chicago (700mi).

Andrew--That is good to hear about Pricelines written policy. The coworker had 3 layovers on his way to NJ from Seattle, and I don't remember how many for his return. This was a couple years ago, so maybe they changed their policy. The one connection policy is good.

Instead of calling the airlines, I would try going to talk to a counter agent at the airport.

I found out about my stepson two minutes after I landed in Boston and US Airways turned right around and put me on the next plane out. No change fees no anything.

I don't know if customer service in India could have been so accommodating.