Flight delay & lost baggage compensation

Flight cancellation

The EC261 grants you cancelled flight compensation of up to €600 when the following criteria are met:

• An airline cancels your flight in less than 14 days prior to a scheduled departure
• The reason for flight cancellation is out of scope of extraordinary circumstances (bad weather, security measures, etc.).

In addition, EC261 protects you even more:

• Regardless the reason for cancellation, you can always make a choice between refund of your flight ticket and alternate re-routing at the earliest opportunity. If you chose the former, you're out of airline's contract and you must further take care of yourself (which is why the latter might be often more lucrative).
• When a flight is cancelled immediately before a departure, airlines must provide you with meals, refreshments, and hotel accommodation when needed - everything free of charge.

Like in case of flight delays, when your flight is out of the scope of the EC261, the Montreal Convention can come in handy.

• You can get up to €5,200 as reimbursement of your reasonable and provable extra expenses caused by flight cancellation.
• If you can't prove the damage, rather give up on requesting financial compensation and ask an airline for extra bonus miles.

Missed connecting flight

In order to even start thinking about financial compensation for missed connecting flights, you must always have respective flights under the same booking (the same PNR code is presented for all involved flights).

When checking out eligibility for compensation, always focus on the initial flight that caused you to miss a connection and analyze it separately - be it either flight delay, cancellation, or denied boarding. Under EC261, you're eligible for financial compensation when:

• You arrived at your final destination more than 3 hours later than planned.
• The reason is out of scope of extraordinary circumstances (bad weather, security measures, etc.).
• You were involuntarily denied boarding a plane.

Like in case of flight delay or cancellation, when your flight is out of the scope of the EC261, the Montreal Convention can come in handy.

• You can get up to €5,200 as reimbursement of your reasonable and provable extra expenses caused by flight delay.
• If you can't prove the damage, rather give up on requesting financial compensation and ask an airline for extra bonus miles.

Denied boarding

It happens that a few passengers don't show up for a booked flight. Therefore, airlines always take a calculated risk and sell more seats than is the capacity of an aircraft. When everyone turns up at a check-in counter, airlines have a right to deny you boarding an aircraft.

• Under the EC261, you must be compensated with a sum ranging from €250 to €600 based on the length of your flight.
• For flights within and from the USA, the sum goes up to 400% of the price of your flight ticket, with a maximum of $1,350.

Lost baggage

When your baggage doesn’t show up at the airport you need to proceed with the following steps:

• Visit baggage claim counter to fill out the so-called Property Irregularity Report (PIR).
• Buy necessary items. Despite the airline's liability usually goes up to €1,400 ($3,300 for U.S. flights), compensation is provided only for reasonable items. If an item is expensive and reasonability might be questionable, rather rent it. A small hint - an average compensation we claim for our clients is around €300.
• Keep original receipts and if possible, pay by using your own credit/debit card. Bear in mind that you'll have to demonstrate and prove the damage.
• Wait for the delivery of your baggage, it usually takes an airline a few days. Require an airline to deliver it to your doorstep. If a bag isn't delivered in 21 days, it's considered lost and you can request compensation also for a content and a bag itself.
• When your bag is delivered, an official request for compensation must be submitted to an airline within the next 21 days.

Unused flight ticket refunds

It happens that you are unable to fly, e.g. because of one of the following reasons:

• You are sick.
• You are late for the flight.
• You changed your plans
• Your visa expired

As long as you didn't check-in for a flight and didn't reschedule the same ticket, you should get at least a partial refund. Also for non-refundable tickets (the cheapest ones).