[rmhaddad]

My parents (73-year-old dad in wheelchair, 69 yield-old mom) bought round-trip tickets to fly from TLV to SFO.
3 days before departure from TLV, my dad's 69-year-old brother who lives in France passed away. My father, along with other members of the family, purchase tickets and flew to France to say their farewell, attend the funeral, etc. This caused my parents to miss their flight out of TLV to SFO.
I called Iberia multiple times to try to reschedule their departure from TLV due to the unusual circumstance. Per their request, I sent them documentation per their request: certificate of death, travel tickets to France, boarding passes , etc... but Iberia were not helpful at all. Their response was a brother is not considered immediate family, and so effectively saying "your parents should not have attended your dad's brother's funeral"; in other words, they were punished for doing so. The best thing they could do was schedule a flight ~2 weeks later where my parents would pay penalty fees plus fare difference per person that amount to more than 200% of what they initially paid to purchase their ticket.
I tried to find another way to get them here, and I did find a one way ticket for them to make the TLV --> SFO trip that wasn't cheap, but still cheaper than what Iberia asked for, but Iberia said that they cannot go back from SFO to TLV, because to them the first leg was a no-show, so the second leg is cancelled automatically.
I tried to reason with them a few times, given the circumstances. I spoke with multiple people from different departments (medical, customer service, public relations, even on twitter), to no avail. They told me point blank in these words - your parents lost the tickets and there's nothing you could do about it.
It was really difficult and heartbreaking, especially for my parents, that my dad lost his brother, and that Iberia punished him for attending the funeral.
#IberiaSucks, #LessonLearned, #NoMoreIberia!