I hope you never need to do this, but sometimes – at the last minute – you just have to get on a plane and go, whether it’s a death in the family or some other emergency.

And yes, four of the five legacy carriers do offer bereavement fares (American, Continental, Delta and United), but a 5-10% discount on an expensive “next day” flight can be so small as to be meaningless.

I tackle this problem in my latest column for ABCNews.com, and offer 7 tips to finding cheaper last minute airfare – for those times when you have to fly.

Strategies include ways to use those frequent flier miles, even if you don’t have enough for a roundtrip flight; using Twitter for last minute deals; driving a few hours to bigger airports (though I also point out the pitfalls of that).

Take a look at the column for all 7 strategies – because the last thing you want to do in an emergency is to add financial burdens to your emotional ones.