Shebudgets
In the U.K., if a customer’s travel itinerary has been changed by the airlines, the law ensures them a refund of a portion of their airfare. Actually receiving it can be tricky, due to the complexity of laws and legalese. The European Commission Regulation established different refunds and reimbursements for cancellations, lost luggage, as well as flight delays. They have been doing this since 2006 in Europe. The airlines will pay for service disruptions but claims have to be filed in the country of departure, regardless of your national citizenship. This is that complexity mentioned earlier. This leads to major confusion with national laws and can stack up legal cases that can take years to resolve. The maximum a flyer can claim is 600 dollars, so most people don’t have time to litigate a claim in court. Travel managers submit claims by email and then deal with claims in European courts.
Refund.me, an air compensation refund service, founded in 2012, estimates the value of compensation issued each year is about 5 billion. Founder Eve Buchner is a former host and journalist of a German new channel, as well as CEO of Refund.me. She has a team of 40 law firms and experts in most European countries. They have launched a portal for travel companies to process compensation requests since travel managers don’t usually have the resources to get all the compensation they are owed.
The goal of the privately-owned company is to fight for passenger’s rights and make them more attainable. In addition to the law experts, it consists of development, claims processing, and customer relations. In its first nine months, they processed claims from 122 airlines for passengers in more than 50 countries. In addition, they have processed claims from 419 airports. In 2012, they introduced a free app on iOS and Android.
It is the goal of travel managers to save money, while at the same time earn money. They don’t have the capacity to handle refunds. In the United States, flyers are only entitled to compensation when they are denied boarding. Only five percent of flyers actually receive money they are entitled to; some don’t even realize what they are entitled to.
This week, the firm launched a web portal designed to help corporate buyers and travel agencies to process and recover compensation due business travelers for flight delays and cancellations. The portal is fully customizable to individual corporate travel programs and has advanced security, performance and management features.
Airlines use Europe’s legal system to game flyers out of compensation. Both take over 20 percent each claim they process as payment for their services. When this all first began, there weren’t a lot of airlines that paid out claims. Airlines have been sued over 5,000 times and most times settle out of court. The United States has the fourth largest market on EU air passage right, due to traffic to and from Europe. What is next? Predicting flight delays and creating a vehicle that can book ahead of a flight guaranteeing a future compensation claim – similar to travel insurance. Also, to actually solve the issue of flight delay problems.
Recently, a Cincinnati startup Travel Notes was acquired by Refund.me. They are a global air passenger rights provider with offices in Germany and Silicon Valley. Travel Notes has an app that communicates travel plans to financial institutions to prevent denial of credit cards abroad. The employees are all in Kentucky. This collaboration strengthens the mission of the two companies and helps travelers win.
On Tax Day, hundreds of Allegiant Air passengers received a special surprise. On Flight 174, passengers were refunded their airfare and did the same for five other flights on the same day. To sweeten this deal, they refunded passengers on three more flights. They were excited to do it! COO Jude Bricker stated that Tax Day is no one’s favorite day, so they wanted to make it more enjoyable for their passengers. And that they did.
In March 2016, American Airlines offered full refunds on tickets. The Texas-based airline offers customers the option to hold a tickets for 24 hours, reserving their seat and locking in the fare. Passengers are not required to make the purchase immediately. Once a ticket is purchased, refunds are not available. Delta, Southwest, and United airlines already offer this window and has caused confusion for American Airlines customers.
Passengers assume that all airlines have the same policies but they don’t. Therefore, American has changed their policy to fall in line with the others. This is an effort to improve customers’ travel experience across every airline.
The option to hold a ticket will still exist, once the new refund policy is implemented but will be eventually be phased out. This new policy applies to nonrefundable tickets booked through the call center or online. They must be purchased 7 days in advance of a scheduled flight. The refund policy comes after the Department of Transportation required airlines to either offer customers this hold option or receive a full refund.
Passengers whose flights on U.S. airlines were canceled due to the Brussels bombings last month can obtain full refunds. They are also allowing those passengers to rebook without any fees. When the Brussels airport reopens, it will take time to get back to full speed. Good news is that there are seats available to other popular destinations.
Most airline passenger rights are established by government regulation. Surprisingly, the U.S. has no federal laws or regulations specifying rights if a flight is canceled. With cancellations, your rights derive from the airline itself. Unfortunately, those rights are not even but instead are different from airline to airline.
There is no easy solution when a cancellation occurs. An airline will usually rebook a passenger’s flight and notify them through email or text message. Most of the time, if reasonable, a passenger will take the new booking. Otherwise, there is a hassle. You can always suggest your own alternative but it may take a long time to resolve. If you’re involved in a cancellation outside the U.S., seek a copy of the airline’s commitment document to see what the airline does and does not promise.
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