Compassionate flight

[Pat2065]

My father in Canada is elderly and I know the time will come when I have to make an urgent dash from Sydney to Toronto (in the interim we go as often as we can manage). I keep a bank of just-in-case points but I wondered if anyone had experience with getting any sort of compassionate airfare, either on price or points on very short notice, from QF or other OW airline.

 

[Anna]

I have a recollection from about 20 years ago of QF pulling strings so my mother could get a reasonably priced economy seat on a full QF flight to Europe when she needed to make an urgent trip for compassionate reasons. That's the only experience of it I have had, sorry.

 

[simongr]

Back in 2010 my grandmother was run over by her neighbour and after some debate at home I called QF to see if I could get an award flight (no spare cash at that time) - I managed to get PE to London via BKK and PE to NRT then J to SYD. As I had no leave accrued for the purpose, arriving after not a whY flight was sort of needed. QF release the seats/made the seats available and held the flights until I could get Amex points across.

No points saving really.

 

[medhead]

I looked into this many, many years ago and the fare offered was something like 50% or 75% of a full Y fare. So basically there was no point As most normal fares and sale fares would be cheaper. Can't hurt to call and ask the question.

 

[docjames]

QF are known to be "flexible" in what they'll allow. As others have indicated, they'll often find an FFP routing that will work, or offer a discount to the full fare which is useful if flights are heavily booked, but often it actually works out cheaper to just get online and see who's got cheap seats left as it often will work out cheaper than getting a "compassionate" fare which is essentially a discount off the full fare.

 

[GladstoneTim]

My experience and understanding have been that although the fare may be partly discounted, the conditions are quite liberal allowing changes and flexibility. Have much praise for QF and their local agents -GLT (Sunstate) and DRW, when family tragedies have occurred

 

[Pushka]

I needed a compassionate flight to get my sister in law from Perth to Adelaide when Drs announced her mother had 24 hours to live (long battle with ovarian cancer). Normally not an issue but Australian flights had been grounded by the Pilots strike of 1989! So cheap wasn't the issue for us, but getting a flight was.

Qantas pulled out a miracle. There was one flight, an International transit flight that with medical documentation we were allowed to use (domestic routes were banned). The lady who took my first call at 5am was brilliant and I wrote her a commendation letter. She remembered me years later when I booked another flight and said my letter had given her great pleasure and reward by Qantas.

I think at a crisis time just get whichever flight you can and forget the $$.

(For closure my sister in law arrived around 7pm and her mum had gone by 9pm. She just made it. )

 

[Pat2065]

Thanks to all. It's hopefully not a money question as I keep enough FF points to get to Toronto. However, that's not much help if getting a points seat would be difficult. Your feedback suggests QF are likely to be helpful. If not, being able to buy a ticket on very short notice for a reasonable price will be fine. I just want to be prepared to act when and if necessary.