Lucas
Hi again! In this post, I’m collecting the major players in the flight claim management market to make a small summary that should help you to pick the best one. All featured companies run their business in the no win, no fee model. It means that you pay nothing unless they will win your case. This article is a part of my flight delay compensation guidebook where you can find more detailed posts on how to apply for flight claim compensation.
Table of Contents
Methods to Apply for Flight Claim Compensation
There are two ways to apply for compensation. The first one is to do it on your own. But keep in mind the latest reports showing that 70% of customers who attempt to contact the airlines regarding claims for a bad flight are rejected or ignored. Moreover, Claim Flights company research shows that only 5% of all air passengers use their right to claim delayed flights.
I would like to encourage you to know your rights and try to deal with the airline on your own. To facilitate this task I would recommend you to read my plane delay compensation step by step for EU flights. You will find there all the necessary information about this process.
But of course, taking the above statistics into account it can be difficult to do it alone. Therefore you have the possibility to use a third-party company to do the job for you. They will take care of all administrative work. As I mentioned, the companies in the summary are working in the no win, no fee model, and they will not charge you for this administrative work unless they will win the case. Then, you will need to share your benefit with them (on average 25% of your compensation amount).
How to Pick the Best Company for Flight Claim Compensation
There is a number of different companies on the market and it can be difficult to decide which will take care of your case in the best way. Of course, you can say: that’s easy – you just need to look for those which take less of the winning amount. But in reality, it’s not the whole story. In addition to price, other things are just as important when choosing a flight claim company. I was thinking about what else should be taken into account and I came up with the following criterion:
- Can you trust this company? Trust is the currency of the future. The claim management company handles hundreds of Euros for each of thousands of customers. The amounts can be huge and you have to trust the claim management company that they will handle your case in a correct way and pay your money to you. That’s why you will find in the summary for each company a score in Trustpilot’s evaluation. You can read there some more from satisfied and dissatisfied customers.
- The claim company needs to understand the European legal systems and have contact with European lawyers in different European countries. You have to trust them to judge your case in the correct way. That’s why it’s good to know some details about the company. I think the minimum you should know is:
- how big it is,
- where is located
- how long has it been on the market
Flight Claim Management Companies Summary
The below summary was created in January 2021 (updated in August 2022) and the information below is public, and easy to find on the company’s web pages or official social media profiles. The simulation of compensation fee calculation takes as an assumption living in Europe and we are applying for 600 EUR.
Company | Success Fee | Trustpilot Score | Trustpilot Reviews | On the Market Since | Company Located in | Company Size | Final Rank |
 | 25% if following this instruction else 35% | 97 470 | 2013 | Berlin, Germany | 501–1000 employees | ||
 | 25% | 1 017 | 2016 | Lithuania, Vilnus | 51-200 employees | ||
 | 25% success fee + VAT = 29,75% | 955 | 2010 | Germany, Berlin | 11-50 employees | ||
 | 25% | 1 218 | 2015 | San Francisco, Silicon Valley | 11-50 employees | ||
 | 25% + VAT = 29,75% | 476 | 2014 | Germany, Bonn | 11-50 employees | ||
 | 25% success fee + VAT = 29,75% | 1 203 | 2012 | Germany, Potsdam | 11-50 employees | ||
 | 25% | 136 | 2014 | Czech Republic, Prague | 1-10 employees | ||
 | 25% | 70 | 2015 | Portugal, Porto | 1-10 employees |
VAT quotes are dependent on your country of residence (in Europe). The success fees mentioned in the above table are valid only through the links from my blog.
Airlines Market Situation After COVID-19 Travel Restrictions (Updated: August 2022)
In 2021 the situation in the air industry was quite similar to 2020 – compared to 2019, almost half of the traffic was gone. In the 2nd quarter of 2022, a lot of countries decided to release travel restrictions which resulted in a surge in the number of travels. The situation improved so much that airports and airlines were not ready to handle this traffic. According to OAG company, the domestic traffic in August 2022 was only 3,6% less than its peak in June 2019. International traffic remains still significantly below compared to 2019, but if we look at it from the 2021 perspective, summer 2022 doubles the average international traffic in the 2nd half of 2021.
As I mentioned above – airlines were not ready to handle this traffic increase. This resulted in a dramatic surge in flight cancellations and delays, especially in Europe. Just to mention the situation in Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport where the on-time performance for outbound flights was below 50% in late June or Frankfurt Airport with 1036 disrupted flights between June the 1st and July 25th.
This situation resulted in thousands of delays and flight cancellations. Unfortunately, me and my family we were also affected by this and we had to claim our compensation. In other words, Claim management companies have a lot of work this summer. Therefore, it’s better to pick the one which will deal with your claim in the best way, with the greatest chances for success.
Flight Claims Management Market Situation (Updated: August 2022)
As mentioned above, increased airline traffic has a significant impact on the claims management market. Google searches are always a good metric of people’s interest and what products/services they are currently looking for. The Google Trends graph for the last 3,5 years with company names as keywords gives the following picture:
As we can see above, starting from May 2022, queries about flight management companies surged similarly to the flight seat capacity growth shown by OAG.
As we can see, the past 2 years were quite harsh for claim management companies. Just to mention that two companies from my list: FairPlane, Claim4Flights suspended their operations and were removed from the benchmark table.
Looking at the global interest in Google searches, Airhelp came back as the most popular claim management company. Looks like they are taking the lead in the industry again strongly supported by ~113 000 positive reviews on Trustpilot (that’s about +10 000 more reviews since my last update in January 2021) with a total mark 4,7 / 5 which is the best in class result in this industry.
This is not common for others – the best competitor in this field, the company ClaimCompass, has ~1900 positive reviews with an overall score of 4,7 / 5.
From the new things on the market, it’s worth mentioning the new service introduced by Airhelp called Airhelp+. It’s kind of a yearly subscription. By paying 19,99 EUR per year, they will not charge you with a success fee (25%) – it means, you will be paid with the total amount of compensation you are entitled to for each claim processed through AirHelp.
Final word
If you would ask me which company is my personal pick, I would say that my personal choice is always Airhelp.
Why? You will know after reading my Airhelp Review article on how with their help, I managed to get compensation for a delayed flight, despite previous unsuccessful attempts to settle it on my own. Since that time I let them represent me in 3 claims – all with success, and I got my money back. In my particular case, they are 100% efficient.
AirHelp is the biggest player in the market with a very good reputation and a long presence on the market. Some people may say that they take almost 50% if your case will reach the court but believe me – most common this will be not necessary (short to say, airlines know they are likely to win), so take this possibility as the worst-case scenario. In the majority of cases, you will be charged with just 25% of your benefit (but only if you will use links from my site – read about it more here) – it’s not a lot taking into account how easy it is to deal with their mobile app – you just upload your boarding pass with a built-in scanner, take a photo to upload supporting documents and that’s it. Later you just get notifications about your claim, as they happen. Easy peasy – with just a couple of taps, you’ve submitted your claim!
Besides that, they have a pretty cool feature – your air travel map. If you let Airhelp crawl your email, they will automatically get all the air travels tickets and make present it on the kind of map with your statistics (countries visited, flight time, and more) – an awesome thing to share on social media :-).
That’s it for today. I will keep updating this post to have always fresh information. Share if you like and write some comments on what are your experiences with such companies.
Featured image source: pixabay.com
I would like just to point at one mistake you have in listed claim companies table.
Actually “Claim Flights” do charge VAT % next to their percent, and amount depends from which EU country you are. Only in case you are out of EU countries, allegedly they will not charge VAT %. But for EU countries it does.
Thank you
Hi, thanks for this valuable input. I’ve just updated the table.
Hi Lucas! For the sake of your American readers, you might want to include EU Flight Delay (euflightdelay.com), which is currently the only U.S.-based flight compensation company.
Hi Anna. Thanks for the comment. I would love to add them but so far they have no reviews on trustpilot.com and the domain was created on 2018-09-27 so it seems that they are just starting. Therefore we need to wait a bit until some more data about this company will be available. I’m looking at least for their success rate and some customers reviews on trustpilot.com.
Hi Lucas,
I have contacted airhelp regarding my claim but since it is not in the list of flight delays nor boarding denies, it is rather difficult to send claim which is not listed. So, you need to choose some option although it is not exactly your case, and in that case you are not covered by passangers protection law. My claim is regard to booking and charging flight back by airline company without my approval. Now, I am not sure if my case is not at all covered by passangers protection laws or the airhelp is just dealing with few most common cases the claims are submited for? Thanks for any comment or tip.
Regards, Snezana
Hi Snezana. Let me first understand what was the problem. Could you tell us more details like if the flight did take place at all?
What was the flight route and airline?
Finally, what makes you unable to register your claim through Airhelp site? I think you can provide all data and explain some more in the comment as finally they ask you to describe exactly what happened.
Hi Lucas,
This is what happened: we flew from Milan to Morroco by Ryanair, but were enter refused due to visas issues. We were informed by border police that we do not have to fly back to Milan and we can go anywhere. Furthermore, they were really kind and eventually helped us find the best flight to destination we would like to go. We choose Morrocan airline flight to Porto which took place early next day. Also, they have told us that Ryanair ground stuff made mistake letting us on the flight without proper visas. Anyway, we booked flight to Porto and next morning flew to Portugal. But, in meantime, Ryanair booked for us flight back on their tomorrow’s flight to Milan, without asking us where we would like to go. And, of course charged my credit card with the price of more than 800eur!
When I send my claim to Airhelp, with detailed explanation they replyed:
“You were denied boarding for a reason that isn’t covered
As far as we can tell, you were unable to board your flight for a reason that isn’t covered by passenger protection laws. Some types of boarding denials are covered, like when you get bumped from an overbooked flight, but not all situations are eligible for compensation.”
So, it seems to me that they are dealing just with
delayes, overbooked or canceled flights. Or, just these cases are regulated by passangers protection laws.
Regards
Hi Snezana.
Thanks for providing the full details.
You wrote that Ryanair charged you for the flight which you even did not book – as I understood, Ryanair did it without your permission. As they charged your credit card, the first thing which comes to my mind is that you could start a chargeback procedure in your bank. A chargeback is a transaction reversal made to dispute a card transaction and secure a refund for the purchase. There are some limitations – check in your bank, but as I know you can claim the purchase typically up to 120 days.
Regarding visa issue – I would double-check if really there was a problem with your visa – I heard about some cases that people were told that they require a visa or that there is a problem with their visa, but in the embassy, it appeared that all is ok. In this case, you can apply for compensation like you would be bumped off the plane.
Let me know if any of the above mentioned will help you.
regards
Hi Lucas
My group of four friends were on a Ryanair flight from Bergerac to Stansted in September which was delayed by over four hours because the plane’s front boarding steps were jammed and could not be retracted.
The friend who booked and paid for the flights claimed delay compensation which Ryanair quickly accepted and agreed to.
After several weeks with no news, he contacted the airline again and was told the money had been paid into his account the day the claim was lodged. However NO money has actually been paid in. He has now sent three formal complaints along with a bank statement to prove the money has not been paid nut Ryanair are now not responding. Do you have any idea how we can pursue this further? Any advice would be much appreciated.
Many thanks and best wishes.
Hi Robert,
I would write to them last time via email and ask about any kind of confirmation that money left their bank accounts.
If this will still remain with no feedback, I’d use Twitter (or FB) and ask in public how you suppose to contact them.
So far only this comes to my mind…
Your table seems to have little bug. Your most promoted company AirHelp has service fee 35% in their pricelist. I understand that the difference comes from adding VAT? So if you don’t mention it in the table (for some companies), it gives wrong impression while comparing. Is it so, that if one claims directly from airline, s/he will receive, for example 400€, if a helper company claims, company will get also 400€ and from that roughly 260 gets passenger , 117,- gets company and 23 is paid to government as tax?
Hi Kristjan. Thanks for your comment! You are right… partially.
I mean, yes – that’s true that Airhelp raised the bar, and since October 2019 the regular fee for their services is 35% of your compensation.
On the other hand, if you will use any of the links to Airhelp from my blog, you will get a 10% discount. In other words, your fee will be still 25%.
Regarding your question about what amount is paid directly to you, I can share with you my latest claim which I forwarded to Airhelp (of course they won the case •ᴗ•):
It was pure 25%, and this is what was transferred to my bank account.
Let me know if this helps.
Hello Lucas. I went to the airhelp page using your links on here. How do I know there is a 10% discount applied when I am on airhelp page? I don’t see it anywhere and to submit my claim I have to sign where it says that I am agreeing to their price list which says the fee is 35%?
Hi Regis, I will clarify that and I will come back with the answer. Please ping this comment to be notified about my answer.
Ok thank you. I am awaiting your answer.
Hi Regis, following the instruction from Airhelp, this is how it works:
You have to claim DIRECTLY through my affiliate link (on one session). Then when clicking on the Price list, you should see, the clear statement that the Service fee will be 25%.
If you didn’t go through the claim directly after clicking on my link, but you came back later, the special price will not work.
Please try and let me know if it helps.
didnt work. I followed the instruction, finished everything within 10m, the service fee is still 35%
Hi,
I’ve double-checked the procedure – the link works. Using this link start the process providing your departure and arrival airports:
that’s enough to see the discounted compensation fee – go to the bottom and check price list:
and in the price list everything is written:
If still, it does not work, please contact me via email and we will try to solve the issue (please use contact form on my blog).
cheers,
Lucas
Worked for me !! Opened the website with the link above and the price list states its 25% 🙂
I was successful twice through Airhelp (When the service fee was 25%). I landed on your blog after googling for a change in service provider because of the fee hike. And after reading this blog, I changed my mind to stick to Airhelp. Thank You for the detailed explanation.
My parents took off from Frankfurt to India and their flight was delayed for 90 mins because of which they missed a connecting flight to home city in India. They are Indian residents, and all flights are under same booking Ref Number. Can I claim on their behalf ? And on successful claim, can I give my German Bank Details (Gone through their FAQs but couldn’t find any info regarding this).
Hi Chaitu,
I never tried to claim the flight in the name of somebody else, but I guess it’s no problem to act as a representative of your parents.
I just submitted a claim through AirHelp USING THE LINK FROM YOUR WEBSITE, but the price they are showing me is 35%, not 25% as written. I did submit, within the claim, that I heard about AirHelp from leantravellerguide.com
Hi, please send me via the contact form your claim ID and I will contact Airhelp to check what’s wrong.
Agreed with Nebojsa – when clicking on the link from your website, in contrary to comments above, the price lists still shows 35% (not advertised 25%) – could you please follow up on whether this should be the case? Many thanks
Hi Przemek, I’ve forwarded Nebojsa case to the Airhelp. They will check and in few days I will come back to you with the answer.
I’ve checked today again if it works according to the above instruction and all is ok.
I even made a post with more detailed instructions and a screenshot. You can read it here.
Hi Lucas,
I tried and retried with the link you provided.
When checking the price list at the bottom, the fees appears to be 35% and not 25%, could you please double-check and if needed update the link?
Thanks,
Raphael.
Hi Raphael,
I’m currently working with Airhelp to solve this issue. Latest on Saturday CET time I will come to you guys with a robust solution.
Meanwhile, please try to switch off the adblocker if you are using one and check if you followed instructions from my post on that here.
Thanks Lucas !!
After ready the additional explanation in the blog, tried and retried, at some point I reached the 25% in the price list. And filled a claim. Now waiting for Airhelp to proceed. Again thanks!
Hi Lucas,
You have definitely convinced me to use airhelp.
If you don’t mind, I have a quick question. My family(3 people) waited around more than 7 hours for a return flight to the EU from LAX. We are clearly eligible for 600€ compensation according to EU law EC 261. Is the potential compensation 600€ per family or per person?
…and thank you very much!
Hi Peter,
The compensation is per passenger, so if airline will consider your compensation, then it’s 600 EUR per passenger.
The other question is the reason for the delay – there are some extraordinary circumstances which exclude liability of airline. You can read about it in one of my past articles about Flight Delay Compensation Step by Step for EU Flights (update: May 2019).
Anyway, now it’s a really difficult time for the industry – many of them fight to survive, so I don’t know how airlines treat now claims (even these which are valid).
I hope this could help somehow.
Good luck with your claim.
regards,
Lucas