Money Moral Dilemma: Should we give my in-laws the flight cancellation compensation we claimed?

macweegie

My first thought like many here was that morally the compensation should go to the person who booked and paid for the holiday. I assumed it was only the person who booked the flight who could claim compensation, which is calculated based on the number of passengers in their booking. 

But if you read the MSE page “Flight delay compensation” it states the compensation is for the passenger and not the ticket buyer. Therefore, each passenger is entitled to make their own claim. As Martin says there is a moral question each claimant has to consider - how badly were you as a passenger inconvenienced and how much were you left out of pocket for reasonable expenses that you were unable to claim back from the airline as a result of the delay? 

The in-laws clearly stated they didn’t want to claim compensation for whatever reason, which is their right. The OP therefore had no right to claim compensation on the in-laws behalf, but instead went against their wishes and made a claim on behalf of all the passengers in the booking. The OP as the lead claimant must distribute the compensation to the other people in the group and not profit from money that isn’t theirs - and that means giving the in-laws their share.

silvercar

macweegie said:

My first thought like many here was that morally the compensation should go to the person who booked and paid for the holiday. I assumed it was only the person who booked the flight who could claim compensation, which is calculated based on the number of passengers in their booking. 

But if you read the MSE page “Flight delay compensation” it states the compensation is for the passenger and not the ticket buyer. Therefore, each passenger is entitled to make their own claim. As Martin says there is a moral question each claimant has to consider - how badly were you as a passenger inconvenienced and how much were you left out of pocket for reasonable expenses that you were unable to claim back from the airline as a result of the delay? 

The in-laws clearly stated they didn’t want to claim compensation for whatever reason, which is their right. The OP therefore had no right to claim compensation on the in-laws behalf, but instead went against their wishes and made a claim on behalf of all the passengers in the booking. The OP as the lead claimant must distribute the compensation to the other people in the group and not profit from money that isn’t theirs - and that means giving the in-laws their share.

I agree with your last paragraph. The money rightly belongs to the in laws for their flights, to you and OH for your flights and to the kids for their flights. No one need give up the money they were entitled to for being delayed. The in-laws should then give a small token gift to you for claiming on their behalf.

i also think it fair, that the kids compensation could go in a family ‘holiday pot’ to pay towards a future holiday.

sooziegill

 Would you being asking the same question if it was your parents? I don't think so. Regardless of the outcome hopefully your parents-in-law have 'wised-up' to giving any more free holidays to ungrateful people. 

Nico60

If you were thinking of keeping it for yourself, you should have kept quiet, give it all to the ‘in-laws’ and see if they want to reimburse you a portion for any outlay you may have incurred, but having said that if you were my D/SiL and I knew you’d tried to rip me off after I had paid for you to go, I’d definitely think twice