Imagine this – you’ve got a family emergency and you and your partner need to travel by air and in a hurry. So, you shuffle on over to the bereavement policies only to find you Airline Bereavement Faresdon’t qualify (or shall I say, you don’t count since that would be more to the point). Just the news you are not in the mood to hear or deal with at an already emotionally charged time.

My Open Wallet recently broached the subject in the article “Something’s Missing at Continental…”. While the discounts aren’t anything that are going to make or break most people’s bank accounts (and in an emergency, you’re not really into being frugal), the definition of who is eligible is where the stink starts.

And here are the relationships that are eligible:
Immediate Family

The deceased or hospitalized family member must be one of the following:

* adopted ward
* aunt
* brother
* brother-in-law
* daughter
* daughter-in-law
* father
* father-in-law
* foster brother
* foster daughter
* foster father
* foster mother
* foster sister
* foster son
* granddaughter
* grandfather
* grandmother
* grandson
* half-brother
* half-sister
* husband
* legal guardian
* mother
* mother-in-law
* nephew
* niece
* sister
* sister-in-law
* son
* son-in-law
* step-brother
* step-daughter
* step-father
* step-mother
* step-sister
* step-son
* uncle
* wife

Notice anything missing there? How about “Registered Domestic Partner or Equivalent?”

The reasons you might want to use a bereavement fare (versus just booking a flight as you regularly would) is detailed nicely at About.com. Again, though the article assumes that the word “family” means “legally defined family according to marriage and other legal stuff” typically ignoring the millions of GLBT families.

So, these articles got me to thinking — what about the other airlines? What about bereavement fares in general? Well I learned a heck of a lot on this stroll around the block.

I started my search with GLBT friendly American Airlines. After all, if any airline should be hip to keeping the family in GLBT it should be them, right? Well, good news and bad news. The good news is they include us in their policy.

American Airlines offers a compassion fare for customers traveling due to a medical emergency or death of a family member not limited to immediate family of the passenger. Domestic partners are allowed.

The bad news is that I searched their website and couldn’t find the damn thing. It took me going back to Google and searching on “American Airlines Bereavement Fare” to find this page buried in their site.

I took a little cruise over to United Airlines to see what I could find. Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything to determine if GLBT families are included or not, all I found was the ever unhelpful “United offers emergency fares for different situations. You cannot obtain these fares on united.com and must call United Reservations at 1-800-United-1 (1-800-864-8331).” I wasn’t sufficiently motivated to call and ask.

US Air is equally unhelpful. Multiple searches yielded zippo. So I honestly have no idea if they offer it or not. Frankly if I am in a stressful family situation the last thing I want to do is fight with a search engine that doesn’t answer my questions. America West falls under the US Air arm, so ditto goes for the mystery of their policy as well.

Delta essentially just tells us that “Bereavement Fares are no longer necessary with SimpliFares(tm).” OK, then…

Northwest Airlines puts it even more directly “Because our prices are among the lowest around for last-minute travel, we do not offer bereavement fares.”

Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, and AirTran simply don’t offer them and don’t address the question. A recent USA Today article confirms that they dropped their bereavement fares. This also solved my US Air mystery. They don’t offer it.

OK, so nobody’s families count for a number of the airlines. The good (insert sarcasm) news is that at least we’re being treated equally!

Of course all this being said, in many cases the bereavement fare is still not your best best. In an archived article at Smarter Travel, their research indicated that in almost all cases, the bereavement fare was more expensive than simply booking a last minute online fare. While the article is dated 2004, my guess is that with even more competition with airline fares online and off, the foundation of this research probably holds true today.

In fact, a more recent article “Last Rites for Bereavement Fares” from the Chicago Sun-Times paints a more dire picture of these special circumstance fares.

Bereavement airfares — those discounted tickets for people who need to fly to a funeral or to visit a sick relative — are quietly disappearing.

While taking pillows and pretzels off planes might annoy travelers, yanking fares aimed at helping grieving passengers strikes some as particularly harsh.

So with many airlines dropping their bereavement fares and the fact that most last-minute fares booked online are better deals, for the most part these policy discriminations shouldn’t affect you too much.

Here’s to hoping you don’t have to use any of this information anytime soon. Yet, it is worth considering which airlines take the stand that as GLBT families we actually “count” next time you book your regular air reservations.