Frontier Bereavement Fares: What the Published Rules Cover

Check the schedule before the fare

Many of this airline's routes operate a few times a week rather than daily, and that is a real constraint on urgent travel.

• Check the frequency on your actual dates. A route that exists is not a route that flies tomorrow.
• A cancellation can mean days. With no interline arrangements, being moved to another airline is not something to rely on.
• Look at a larger airport nearby with daily service. A two-hour drive to a daily route frequently beats waiting for the next twice-weekly one.
• Check the return as carefully as the outbound. Getting there is often the easy half.

What to have in front of you

• The full name of the person who has died, as it appears on official documents.
• Your relationship to them.
• The name and phone number of the funeral home, hospital or hospice.
• A death certificate when one is issued — often it is not for several days, which is normal.
• Your booking reference for any existing ticket.

You will want these for an insurer or for another airline's exception request even though this airline does not require them.

If you already hold a ticket you cannot use

• Check what bundle you bought. If it includes change rights, use them — that is the straightforward path.
• On a bare fare, ask anyway, politely. The published position is that there is no bereavement exception, but a courteous request with documentation costs nothing.
• Check any travel insurance you hold. Many policies cover cancellation for a death in the family, and this is frequently the only route that returns money here.
• Check the card you paid with. Several credit cards include travel cover that applies.
• Ask what happens to bags and seats bought against the booking before agreeing to cancel anything.

Booking at short notice

• Be flexible about the airport. A second airport within a two-hour drive often has daily service when the nearer one does not.
• Be flexible about the time of day. Early and late departures have availability midday flights do not.
• Consider a connection. On short notice a one-stop routing often exists when the nonstop is full.
• Book one-way if the return is unknown.
• Compare against carriers that do publish a compassionate fare. A few still do, and on some routes that changes the answer.
• Say what the travel is for. It will not change a published price, but it changes how hard someone looks for you.

Travelling as a family at short notice

• Book separately rather than as one record if people are coming from different cities or deciding at different times.
• Check who actually needs to arrive when. Spreading arrivals across two days usually makes the whole thing easier and less expensive.
• Nominate one person to coordinate. Four people searching separately is how a family ends up on four unconnected itineraries.
• Agree who is collecting whom, particularly for late arrivals at smaller airports.

The first hour: a short list

1. Check whether the route runs on your dates at all.
2. Establish the rough window — two days, or next week.
3. Hold a seat that roughly fits, using the 24-hour rule where it applies.
4. Decide on the fare bundle before you pay, because it cannot be added later.
5. Check for a travel insurance policy you may already hold.
6. Arrange to be met at the other end.

What a bereavement fare was actually worth

It is worth knowing what you are not missing, because it changes where you spend your energy.

The traditional bereavement fare was calculated from a high unrestricted fare, then reduced. By the time anyone compared the result against an ordinary last-minute ticket, the difference was frequently small and sometimes ran the wrong way. What the fare genuinely bought was flexibility — the right to change a date without penalty — and the ability to book very close to departure without the usual punishment.

On a low-fare carrier that trade looks different. The base fare is already low; what costs money is changing it. So the equivalent protection here is not a compassionate price but the bundle that includes change rights, bought at the time of booking. Spend your attention there rather than on a programme that never existed on this airline.

How Fond Travels can help

• We check the schedule first, because a route flying twice a week is the real constraint here rather than the fare.
• We explain what each fare bundle actually buys before you pay, since it cannot be added afterwards.
• We tell you which carriers still publish a compassionate fare on your route, so you are not calling one that has none.
• We look at nearby airports with daily service, which on this network is frequently the answer.
• We do the looking while you deal with everything else.
• We answer at any hour. These calls do not happen at convenient times.

If you need to travel after a death in the family, call +1 (323) 800 6001. A travel expert answers any hour.