V-Flyer

Morning all

Following my recent TRs, I thought I would drop a quick post on my EU 261 claim. Claim was submitted within a few days of returning in early July and acknowledged within a few days by VS. Background was 24 hour delay in GND as the VS89 had turned back as a precautionary measure for a technical problem. Yesterday, 2 x shiny €600 (in GBP) cheques arrived from VS Much quicker than I had expected and with no push back from VS!

I too had no problems with my EU261 claim to Virgin. (VS75 returned to Manchester with a technical fault & landed in Orlando just under 4hrs late). I got no acknowledgement of my claim, but within 3 weeks a cheque for €300 GBP equivalent was on the doormat. Shame we had not arrived in Orlando 5mins later as it would have been €600 then!

TBH, following a couple of court rulings the "wriggle room" the airlines used to have for avoiding paying out has been severely limited. I bet they work on the principle of "Don't even mention EU261 & not that many people will claim - payout to those who claim to keep things quiet and out of the media".

Congrats on the successful claim and well done VS for paying fairly & promptly ..... though maybe an extra free night organised for you by VH in the luxurious Spice Island wasn't the most deserving claim they might have got this year

It's a nice bonus towards the credit card bills for the honeymoon or maybe a nice starter for your next trip with VS/VH.

Congratulations both.

Good job!

This got me thinking I may have a claim from back in march on my trip to MIA...I've been trying to find the departure and arrival time of my flight, but I can't for the life of me find a site that has this information...I tried to sign up to flightstats.com but it just freezes on the signup page, any suggestions?

seany wrote:Good job!

This got me thinking I may have a claim from back in march on my trip to MIA...I've been trying to find the departure and arrival time of my flight, but I can't for the life of me find a site that has this information...I tried to sign up to flightstats.com but it just freezes on the signup page, any suggestions?

Try again with flighstats it will give you everything you need in a timeline for your plane if you can get into it, excellent help when I made my claim 2 years ago to BA, no quibble from them when I could give them the exact information and 600 euro's plus 10K extra Avios each gratefully received within 2 weeks.

TimCrawley wrote:Congrats on the successful claim and well done VS for paying fairly & promptly ..... though maybe an extra free night organised for you by VH in the luxurious Spice Island wasn't the most deserving claim they might have got this year

It's a nice bonus towards the credit card bills for the honeymoon or maybe a nice starter for your next trip with VS/VH.

I have to admit - I was feeling slightly shameful about claiming but the EU made the rules...so why not! However, I did feel a bit sorry for the stranded PAX at LGW (knowing as Kraken says that many people just don't know that they can do this) given they were entitled to the same as me but got the Premier Inn or the like instead of Spice Island...however I have been in that boat before.

seany wrote:I may have a claim from back in march on my trip to MIA...I've been trying to find the departure and arrival time of my flight

It's the time the aircraft arrives at the gate and the door opens that matters. Departure time is irrelevant.

And for those on ex-EU bookings thinking of claiming for delayed flights back to the UK, it's the arrival time at your final booked destination (eg DUB, AMS) that matters. So for example even if your VS flight is 5 hours late into LHR, you can't claim if your eventual arrival into DUB is less than 3 hours late (even if you never actually took the final leg).

Kraken wrote:
TBH, following a couple of court rulings the "wriggle room" the airlines used to have for avoiding paying out has been severely limited. I bet they work on the principle of "Don't even mention EU261 & not that many people will claim - payout to those who claim to keep things quiet and out of the media".

Don't you believe it - other airlines try and do a lot of completely unwarranted wiggling. I put a claim into a well known Orange no frills airline and their first email back claimed that I didn't board the flight (seriously!) and that I wouldn't be entitled to compensation.

Then when I pushed back on them, they changed and said that I did board but then disboarded before it took off.

It then went into a hole whilst they validated with the airport that I was actually on the flight.

3 long months later of chasing regularly and they finally relinquished and sent me the money.

I managed to look up my MIA delay, it was 3 hours and 50 minutes late...Am I reading the 261 form incorrectly or does it need to be 4 hours to claim ?

No, if a long haul flight is between 3 and 4 hours late arriving you can claim €300. Over 4 hours and it doubles to €600 (as long as the delay wasn't due to "extraordinary circumstances" such as weather).

See the bottom of this page: http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/gb/en/tr ... laims.html

Thank you, I'll get one of those forms in then.