That depends entirely on the routing, and the routing turns on three facts you already know: where you departed, where you landed, and who operated the flight. The United States runs a refund regime — your money back, promptly, automatically, in the form you paid — and pays you nothing for the disruption itself. Europe and the United Kingdom run refund regimes plus a fixed-sum cash compensation regime on top. A passenger who claims under the wrong one gets nothing, and this is how to find out which is yours before you write a word.
US Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General, Report No. AV2025045, 17 September 2025.
Most of the disappointment in this subject comes from one mistake. A passenger reads that European law pays 600 euro for a long delay, applies it to a domestic flight between two American cities, and argues for six weeks over money no rule obliges anyone to pay. Or the reverse: a passenger flying out of Frankfurt is told a refund is all they get, accepts it, and never claims the fixed sum they were owed. Both mistakes are the same mistake.
The fact passengers most often get wrong is the third one. Under Article 3(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 a flight arriving in the EU from outside it is covered only if the operating air carrier is a Community carrier — an EU airline. A ticket sold under one airline's code is often flown by another, and the Regulation places its obligations on the operating carrier. Sending the claim to the wrong addressee is the easiest possible reason to have it rejected.
14 CFR Part 260 reaches any scheduled flight to, from or within the United States, foreign carriers included. §260.6(a)(1) requires a full and prompt refund of the airfare including taxes and ancillary fees; §260.10 requires it in the original form of payment, with no processing fee retained.
The Department of Transportation puts it plainly: ‘Contrary to popular belief, for domestic itineraries airlines are not required to compensate passengers whose flights are delayed or canceled.’ There is one exception, and it is not delay or cancellation — it is being involuntarily denied boarding on an oversold flight.
Article 7 pays 250, 400 or 600 euro by distance band, or 220, 350 and 520 pounds under UK261 — on top of the refund or the re-routing, and on top of meals and a hotel, unless the airline proves the Article 5(3) defence. And Article 9 care is owed whatever the cause of the disruption.
The Montreal Convention 1999 covers a destroyed, lost, damaged or delayed bag on any international itinerary, with a limit of 1,519 SDR per passenger in force since 28 December 2024. It pays proved damage rather than a fixed sum — and it has three deadlines that extinguish the right.
The book is built around your itinerary. Answer the routing question and it narrows to a handful of chapters, because the answer decides which rules you can invoke and which you cannot.
Six steps in order, stopping at the first that fits: departed the EU, departed the UK, arrived in the EU from outside on an EU carrier, arrived in the UK on an EU or UK carrier, or touched the United States at all. If none of them fits, what remains is the Montreal Convention and you should stop expecting a fixed sum.
§260.6(a)(2) gives three triggers, and the third is the one people miss: silence is a rejection. If the airline offers a voucher and you simply do not reply, the refund becomes due once the flight has gone. Credit card, 7 business days; anything else, 20 calendar days.
The Regulation as written pays no cash for delay; the Court of Justice in Sturgeon held that a loss of time of three hours or more at the final destination engages Article 7 in the same way a cancellation does. A flight that leaves four hours late and arrives two hours fifty down is not a claim. Record the actual arrival time.
File the Mishandled Baggage Report and photograph the reference number. It satisfies the written-complaint requirement in Article 31, and it is the precondition for the US bag-fee refund under §260.5. Seven days for damage, twenty-one for delay, two years to bring an action at all.
14 CFR §259.7(c) gives a covered carrier 30 days to acknowledge a written complaint and 60 days to answer it substantively. Those are the two dates you chase against. Then the Department of Transportation, an EU National Enforcement Body, or a UK ADR body after eight weeks — each of which does something different, and none of which adjudicates your claim.
Instant download. PDF and DOCX, so the letters can be edited rather than retyped.
Twenty-one chapters in five parts — which rules reach your flight, what the US owes automatically, when you are owed cash on top, baggage and the Montreal Convention, and the paperwork.
Six steps, answered from three facts you already know, plus three real itineraries worked through — including the trip whose outbound and return legs sit under different rules.
Demanding the automatic refund under 14 CFR Part 260; refusing a voucher and requiring the original form of payment; a compensation claim under EU261 or UK261; the reply when the airline pleads extraordinary circumstances; a Montreal Convention baggage complaint; denied boarding compensation under Part 250; and escalation to a regulator.
At the gate when the flight is cancelled; at the gate when you are bumped; the baggage desk before you leave the airport; chasing a refund that has not arrived; answering an extraordinary circumstances refusal; and your regulator before you file.
Seven limbs, any one of which is enough — including the three people miss: a flight moved earlier, an added connection, and a downgrade.
The three triggers, the form the refund must take, both deadlines, the five-year floor on a voucher taken instead — and the one narrow scenario where DOT has paused enforcement until 7 July 2027, which is not the same as the right going away.
200 or 400 per cent of the fare, capped at $1,075 or $2,150 — a ceiling, not an amount — payable in cash or an immediately negotiable check, and within 24 hours if you have already flown out.
The current Montreal limits with the superseded ones beside them, and the three clocks in the order they run out — because Article 31(4) bars the action and Article 35 extinguishes the right.
Four prompts that genuinely help, and a blunt list of what never to ask — starting with the great circle distance between two airports, which decides which band you are in.
Seven routes with what each one will not do, ten terms in plain English, and honest answers to eight questions people actually ask.
Almost every article on this subject describes one regime as though it were the law everywhere. The scope wording of both is printed here in full — Article 3(1) and the Part 260 scope sentence — so you can check your own itinerary against it rather than against a summary.
A European revision was adopted in July 2026 and does not yet apply; the two EU institutions describe its application date in incompatible terms, so this book prints no date at all and tells you not to cite it in a letter. A US enforcement pause on renumbered flights will run until 7 July 2027 — which suspends enforcement, not the right.
Sturgeon is why a long delay is compensable at all. Wallentin-Hermann is why a technical fault is not automatically an extraordinary circumstance, and why complying with minimum maintenance rules does not on its own discharge the reasonable-measures limb. Cuadrench More is why there is no EU-wide claim deadline. Each is quoted with its case number and date.
No claims-company success rate, because those firms are paid a percentage of what you recover. No national limitation periods, because the Court made those a matter of national law and no single source states them. No answer on whether strikes are extraordinary circumstances, because Article 5(3) sets a test rather than a list. And it names the places two federal publishers disagree with each other.
Chapters 4 to 7. The refund is automatic and you do not have to ask for it — which is exactly why so many people accept a voucher instead.
Chapter 8. It is the one place US federal law puts a dollar figure in your hand, and the structure is a percentage of your fare capped at a maximum, which is why passengers so often argue with the wrong half of it.
Chapters 9 to 14. That is where cash compensation on top of the refund lives, along with the fourteen-day notice rule that is the first thing the airline will check.
Chapters 15 and 16, today. The complaint deadlines are seven days and twenty-one days, and missing them ends the claim rather than merely delaying it.
Chapter 12 and Letter 4. Article 5(3) puts the burden on the carrier and requires two things proved, not one — and a refusal with the words technical fault in it is not by itself an answer.
Only the regulation, the facts of your flight and, if it comes to it, a regulator or a court can decide that. This book gives you the rule and the letter.
It names none, because the rules do not vary by carrier. A ranking would be a different product.
It is education, not a claim service. Every letter in Chapter 18 is free and none requires anything you do not already have.
The refund the US rule makes automatic is your whole fare, and the compensation Article 7 pays is fixed by distance rather than by what you paid. The routing question in Chapter 1 is free to answer and takes two pages.
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An explanation of air passenger rules and how they are structured. Not legal advice, not a claim service, and reading it creates no professional relationship.
Only the regulation, the facts of your flight and, if it comes to it, a regulator or a court can. What it can do is make sure you are claiming under the rulebook that actually reaches you.
The US denied boarding caps are adjusted on a two-year cycle and a revision fell due during 2026 that this book could not locate, so it prints the current figures and tells you to check the Federal Register. The Montreal limits move on a five-year cycle, next due around 28 December 2029. The superseded caps of $700 and $1,350 are still widely repeated, and are named as wrong.
Every rule, amount and deadline comes from a regulation, a treaty, a court judgment or a government regulator, with the publisher named and the date given. Claims-management companies are paid a percentage of what you recover, which makes them an interested party in any success rate they publish.
This edition has just been released. Rather than publish testimonials from people who do not exist, these spaces are held for the first genuine reader reviews. On a product whose whole argument is that unsourced numbers should not be trusted, that seemed like the only defensible choice.
If the routing question changed what you claimed — in either direction — we would like to hear how, and to publish it in your own words, with your permission.
We will not publish claims about amounts recovered. What an airline pays depends on facts and evidence no book controls.
Reserved for someone who refused the voucher and got the refund back to the card they paid with. That is the chapter we would most like to hear worked.
None. There is no US federal rule that pays you for a delayed or cancelled flight. You are owed a full automatic refund if you do not travel, in your original form of payment, plus whatever the airline has publicly committed to on the Department's customer service dashboard — which is a commitment, not an entitlement. Chapter 7.
Yes, if you have not accepted it. Rejecting a voucher is one of the three triggers for the automatic refund under 14 CFR §260.6(a)(2), and §260.10 requires the refund in the original form of payment unless you agree otherwise. Letter 2. If you have already accepted one, note that a voucher offered as an alternative to a refund must remain valid and redeemable for at least five years.
No. Article 3(1)(b) covers a flight arriving in the EU from a third country only if the operating carrier is a Community carrier, and a US airline is not. You are owed the automatic US refund if you did not travel. The return leg, departing Paris, would be a different answer entirely.
Not on its own. Article 5(3) requires the airline to prove both that the circumstance existed and caused the disruption, and that it could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Ask for both in writing — Letter 4. And note that Article 9 care is owed whatever the cause.
Up to 1,519 SDR per passenger under the Montreal Convention, in force since 28 December 2024 — and that is a limit on proved damage, not a payment. On a domestic US itinerary the figure is the DOT limit of $4,700, effective 22 January 2025. Either way, complain in writing within seven days of receiving a damaged bag.
A revising regulation was adopted in July 2026. It does not yet apply, and this book could not verify its publication in the Official Journal. The Council and the Parliament describe the application date in incompatible terms, so no date is printed here. Claim under the 2004 Regulation, and do not cite the revision in a letter.
Both. Every purchase includes the PDF and an editable DOCX, so the letters can be filled in and sent rather than retyped.
Email sales@viralbydesign.co within 7 days of purchase for a full refund. No forms, no explanation required.
Open it, answer the routing question in Chapter 1 — where you departed, where you landed, who operated it — and you will know within two pages which rules reach your flight and which do not. If it is not what you expected, email sales@viralbydesign.co within 7 days of purchase and you get a full refund. No forms, no explanation required.
Where you departed, where you landed, and who operated it. Three facts you already know, and between them they decide whether you are owed your fare back automatically, a fixed sum in cash on top, proved damage under a treaty, or nothing at all. Claiming under the wrong one is six weeks spent arguing over money nobody was ever obliged to pay.
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