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The vast majority of business travellers don’t claim compensation due when their flights are delayed, cancelled and overbooked.
Flight delays and cancellations are always irritating, but can be particularly inconvenient for business travellers on tight schedules. Your employer might pay your ticket, but you are the one waiting for a flight that should have departed hours ago. Because you experience the inconvenience of the delay, you are entitled to compensation. This needs to be said, as 80% of business travellers do not file a claim, perhaps because of the common misconception that the employer is entitled to the compensation.
The compensation is based on European regulation dating back to 2004, and can amount to as much as ~£530 (€600) per person for intercontinental flights. You can file a claim for all flight problems you have experienced in the past six years. This means that you may have a ‘piggy bank’ full of delayed, cancelled or overbooked flights.
As you may expect, airlines are not your friend during the claim process, considering they are the ones responsible for paying you. Some airlines may be more helpful than others, but because paid compensations are considered losses, airlines will often try to make obtaining your compensation as difficult as possible. Simply ignoring passengers who claim is a common tactic, and (borderline) dishonesty isn’t extraordinary. Airlines have an impressive array of excuses, even in cases where they don’t have a leg to stand on in court.
If you have experienced the misery of a delay, cancellation or overbooking in the past 2 years, we recommend three main options.
File a claim yourself: This is what we recommend you try first of all, as you’ll get the highest compensation amount this way – if your claim is successful.
If you feel you’re getting fobbed off by the airline though and don’t have the time or inclination to carry on the fight yourself, you may want to try a specialist agency like Claimingo, who offer two different ways forward:
No cure, no pay: The standard model of the claims industry, where Claimingo will fight to get you your compensation, and even go to court for you if necessary. Similar to when you file a claim yourself, you get a relatively high amount of up to €450 – but the average waiting time is 6-8 months.
‘Claim&GO‘: Claimingo buys your claim for a fixed amount of up to €180 – you are guaranteed to get the cash in your bank account within 1 week. Claim&GO is the fastest way to get the compensation you’re entitled to, and you have to do next to nothing for it – the downside is that you won’t receive as much.
Bottom line
Don’t forget that the compensation regulations cover you regardless of whether you are travelling on a personal trip or a business one!
It’s not two years. You have actually six years to claim at least in the UK. In other EU countries it might be different.
Good catch – amended. Cheers!
Note that if your flight originates in the US, you might well fall under the more generous US Dept Of Trade compensation scheme. On a recent BA flight from LAS to LHR, Biz was overbooked, I declined a downgrade due to medical reasons, and we were Involuntarily Denied Boarding.
We were immediately given a $1350 card EACH (which is the US DoT mandated payout), plus overnight accommodation, transport, food, and booked on the flight the following day. This is much more generous than the EU €600 each. Also rather than having to retrospectively claim and do a bit of back a forth and wait for a conclusion, the money was handed to us in the form of 2 prepaid credit cards that were active in 2 hours.
Great point – I didn’t know it was so generous!