Ok, so this happened about four months ago, and it's still eating at me, and I'm just curious about other people's opinions.

I'm in university in the US. Our Thanksgiving break was Thanksgiving and the day after. I booked flight tickets in October to see my sister during break, since she lives on the other side of the US. My cousin called me from the UK (our home country) a week before Thanksgiving, wanting me to come back over my break to visit him. He's one of my best friends, and I hadn't seen him since June when I went back to the US for an internship (I had two weeks after classes ended in May to see family). He was also really sick at this point, though I didn't know how sick when he called.

I hadn't seen my sister since last Thanksgiving, and I had already booked the tickets and couldn't get a refund if I cancelled. Even though it was only £200 roundtrip, that was more than I could afford to lose as a broke student. I also looked at prices for flights home that week, and to make my schedule, the cheapest I could find was about £1300. Given all this (and again, not knowing how sick he was), I told him that I couldn't swing it, but I had two weeks between semesters, so I would come home then. He wasn't happy with this, and we didn't talk for like two days, but I think his wife or mum yelled at him because I was trying. He called me back and told me not to worry about coming over Christmas and to just save to come back over the summer.

During my finals, my cousin had two major health episodes, and was in hospice before the end of the year. Because I didn't get the tickets home during Thanksgiving, they were now about £1800, and I didn't have the money to cover it. He passed just after my semester started, and though his wife set up Skype so I could attend virtually, I still missed seeing him in his last few months.

He didn't tell me about his health declining so rapidly, and I was focusing more on my finals after he called the second time and said not to worry until the summer. I still feel like such an asshole, though. AITA?