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Travel can be frustrating. From the exasperating news of a delayed flight, to being told to wait for the next flight because there has been an overbooking ‘issue’, to being advised the flight has been cancelled due to leaves on the runway.
But where does that frustration lead? Nowhere. The overly-orange customer service representative will smile brusquely, and say there is the choice of waiting patiently, or walking.
Most travellers will choose option A, because walking 800km to Sydney is not really an option. Most will also not do anything about it after the fact, usually because they don’t know that they can.
Enter option C: using a compensation website like refund.me. Since its launch last year, award-winning German website refund.me has processed passenger claims for airline compensation from 122 airlines, for passengers in more than 50 countries across five continents.
What is refund.me?
refund.me and other similar sites – such as Flightdelayed.co.uk, EUClaim.com, and Eudelay.co.uk – specialise in processing claims for compensation on behalf of disgruntled passengers, covering travel by plane, boat, train and coach. The number of these sites is growing, and while they operate mainly out of Europe right now, perhaps the trend could spread to Australia. refund.me works on compensation claims for flights leaving from EU airports, as well as flights destined for Europe on EU carriers. Which allows even Australian travellers to potentially see a piece of the action.
It all operates on a fairly simple premise. If a passenger wants to make a claim, he visits the refund.me site, enters the claim, and is told straight away if the claim is valid. The site works on a no win, no fee basis, so the passenger will only pay a fee if a claim is paid out. If a claim is paid out, refund.me takes 25% as commission.
The amount of compensation paid out depends on the claim, varying according to the length of the flight, the length of the delay, or the manner of the complaint. Compensation is available for flight delays, cancellation or denied boarding, and can range from $395 to $949.
Not bad, considering most passengers wouldn’t even think to make a claim. But, as refund.me CEO Eve Buechner says, “‘being justified’ is by no means the same as ‘receiving justice’.
The Power of social media
But what about all the poor Aussies? For the most part, Australians don’t have access to these wondrous refund sites, and have to deal with airlines all by themselves. Apparently, Facebook could help.
On a recent Tiger flight from Hobart to Melbourne, one student was told that he had been bumped from the flight because it had been overbooked. Despite being on time for the flight, Nathanial Martin was told he couldn’t board the plane because he was last to check-in. Having class the next morning in Melbourne, Martin had to pay $296 for a Jetstar flight later that night, meaning he was out of pocket $500 in total.
Frustrated, Martin took to Facebook, venting his anger about the situation, and in just 12 hours, the post had more than 67,000 likes, had been shared almost 10,000 times, and had attracted thousands of comments. The next morning, Tiger agreed to cover the cost of the original flight, and the Jetstar flight too. As long as Martin removed the Facebook post.
While Europe seems to have travel compensation covered, in the meantime, Aussies will have to fend for themselves. The question is, with more people making claims against the airlines, will those payout costs be reflected in the price of flights? As one passenger skips away with a few hundred bucks, will passengers on the next flight have to pay more to cover it.
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