Are companies offering to obtain the EU delay compensation for you, effective?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 3 Aug, 2023
- |
To claim for delayed flights compensation in the EU under (EU rule 261/2004) should only cost the price of a stamp to your airline. You should not pay a 3rd party company to do this for you. There are some very helpful tips that are provided by Martin Lewis (The Money Saving Expert) in the UK which I followed and were successful in my claim. I presume it is the same process throughout the EU?
There are some key points you need to be aware of before you claim though:
- The rule is only for EU regulated flights. An EU flight is where the flight departed from an EU airport, regardless of the airline, OR where an EU airline landed at an EU airport. Under this law, EU airports also include those in Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
- The ruling only goes back to flights from 2008 onwards when the rule came into affect. Apparently you can go back to 2005 but this has been proven harder to claim for.
- Delay must be the airlines fault. It must be something within their control. Weather, political unrest etc are not accepted.
- The delay must be over 3 hours to claim for compensation.
- The compensation is fixed to delay length and distance travelled on flight regardless of original flight cost. Martin Lewis provides a rough table to work out what could be owed to you.
The link above also provides more detail and includes some standard letters that you can use for your claim as well as helpful addresses to airlines and the EU regulation body for appeal. You are essentially claiming to your airline under EU rule 261/2004 and they will judge the claim on a claim by claim basis. If rejected you can appeal.
I imagine the companies you found that offer this service for 25 EU are just doing the same thing. They will take a percentage cut of any claim won and charge an admin fee of 25EU a time. My advice, stay away.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘