Flight delay compensation successes

MSE_Laura_F

Have you managed to successfully claim compensation for a flight delay?

Please let us know how much you were compensated and how you managed it.

eskbanker

I found the process very straightforward with EasyJet a number of years ago, submitted the claim online and with no further dialogue being necessary, received a cheque for the correct amount defined in the regulations shortly afterwards.

If you read through all the other threads on this board, you'll see that this isn't a universal experience!  What's the endgame here?

MSE_Laura_F

It's of interest to all the MSE teams to hear about times money matters turned out well. The success threads on other boards are a useful well of examples, so I hope to collect some similar positive stories here.

eskbanker

MSE_Laura_F said:

It's of interest to all the MSE teams to hear about times money matters turned out well. The success threads on other boards are a useful well of examples, so I hope to collect some similar positive stories here.

Oh right, I was wondering if there was perhaps an intention to assemble some sort of airline-specific guide, in terms of percentages of successful claims and so on, but I suppose one of the key issues here is that circumstances vary so widely, i.e. situations won't be directly comparable anyway.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/flight-delays/#big_money already quotes examples of successful claims, but perhaps they're not so recent?  They often seem to promote Resolver, although to be fair the article does mention that a number of airlines won't accept claims via that route.

dander

Yes, I have - was just here looking for the original thread on which I'd asked for  help here to post an update. In June was due to travel with 80 year old parents from Luton to Inverness on a short break (with expensive trip on Jacobite train booked for the day after travel). 9am-ish flight. Arrived at airport to find flight cancelled (they'd texted my dad at 3am but he doesn't look at his phone at that time of day!). After quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing at the EasyJet desk they booked us onto an alternative flight from Gatwick to Aberdeen for later that day - was a day from hell trying to get to our accomodation (4 hour drive now from Aberdeen) - had to change car hire location, get to Gatwick by cab, only to find new flight was also delayed etc etc. 

Anyway, we claimed £220 each for the delayed flight through the EU compensation scheme. That got paid into bank accounts within 10 days of the claim going in. (slight confusion over names of travellers, but that was quickly resolved). Then claimed a total of ~£380 for cab, car hire costs, food etc through the other standard EasyJet expenses claim forms. That was also paid within 10 days of submission. Whole lot came to just over £1k, very easily returned to us. I think the flights had been about £90 each, so technically we made a profit, but my parents found the whole thing so exhausting and stressful it definitely impacted our holiday significantly and the universal feeling is it wasn't worth it, we'd have rather had the flights we booked than free flights and extra money.

I was very surprised - we still don't know what caused the cancellation in the first place (no weather or strikes) and people on the boards had warned me we may have trouble justifying taking a cab rather than public transport from Luton to Gatwick - although for 3 of us having to travel across London I suspect the cost may not have been very different. I was ready for a fight about the mobility of my parents, but no trouble at all!