Joe Kennedy

Joe Kennedy is routinely named the region's best writer by readers of The Roanoker magazine.

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Until my sister-in-law became gravely ill, I knew nothing of discounted airfares, online ticketing and all the other issues related to contemporary air travel.

My last plane trip had been in the spring of 2000. That was before Sept. 11, 2001, the day that changed the world, and especially the world of airline security.

On Sunday, my brother John's wife, Marylou, died after nearly five years of fighting cancer. Relatives from all over prepared to travel to Ann Arbor, Mich., for the funeral service and burial.

By then I had accumulated some knowledge of online fares, particularly those made on short notice.

On Monday, you could have bought a Delta round-trip ticket between Roanoke and Detroit that would leave Roanoke Regional Airport at 1 p.m. today.

The price, on Expedia.com, was $539.

That's a lot of money to pay for spending a lot of time traveling -- seven hours and 19 minutes, thanks to stops in Cincinnati and New York.

Nonstop flights leaving in the early morning, at midday and in late afternoon would take from 94 minutes to 129 minutes. But those flights cost $884 per person.

A flight leaving Roanoke today at 5:35 p.m. would include a connection in Chicago, take four hours and one minute and cost $1,040 round trip.

If the flight were scheduled two weeks later, from April 17 to April 19, nonstop coach tickets would cost as little as $223 per person. The flight would take 94 minutes.

That's through Expedia.

The highest fare for a round trip two weeks hence would be $493 from Delta, with one stop.

Booking late carries a penalty.

But what about bereavement fares, available to those who wish to attend funerals or visit seriously ill relatives before they die?

If you go online, you will find pages that tell you most airlines have given up bereavement fares.

Others tell you the information you'll need to provide to airlines that do offer bereavement discounts. They often amount to half the cost of a last-minute flight.

Others say to call the airline's own ticket service to get the scoop.

John distributed an e-mail Sunday night that promised to make things easier. It included the phone number for the Dignity Memorial Bereavement Program (800 224-4177), a travel agency that arranges reservations for hotels, car rentals and airline tickets.

I tried it Sunday night and heard the usual recorded voice talking about an amazingly heavy volume of calls. Ultimately I was asked to leave a message so someone could get back to me, probably within an hour.

Someone did. Her name was Lynn, and she was more than competent but hamstrung by some facts: The direct, round-trip flights she found came from Northwest and cost $940.42 per person.

I planned to take a friend to Ann Arbor for moral support. Two round trips would cost $1,880, and that's without the hotel and car rental.

Lynn told me Northwest required a Saturday night layover for the bereavement discount. We would return on Thursday.

The airline's Web site said the carrier offered no bereavement discounts because of its already low prices.

Confused, I returned to Expedia, expecting to spend about $1,200 for two round-trip tickets.

Then my telephone rang. It was Lynn, saying Northwest did have a bereavement rate. The direct flight cost $409.79 per person, about $531 less than the fare originally quoted.

"I'll take two," I said.

This felt like the steal of the century until I remembered that Northwest's nonstop fare for April 17-19, two weeks away, started at $223, or $446 for two, compared with my $818.

The airlines want people to book early for all sorts of practical reasons, and those of us forced by sad circumstances to book late should be grateful for any breaks we get.

It's a rare funeral that has a bright side, but I'm flying nonstop and paying at least $100 less than the cheapest last-minute tickets I could otherwise find -- and those flights had three stops and would take as long as 11 hours to complete.

If there is an upside, that is it.