To ask your views - holiday / compensation

[dadap]

My brother paid for airline tickets and visas for 12 of his family members to visit relatives. ( including in-laws) to cut a long story short - travel was horrendous where they cancelled our flight and we ended up being passed to a different airline arriving a day later and spending 15 hours just hanging around airports. We are due compensation. Do you think compensation should go to my brother as he paid for everybody originally or that it should go to individuals. My reason for asking is that one in- law wants to make a claim on her own insurance which means it would go direct to her. Whereas I had just assumed we would claim direct with airline and any compensation if cash could go back to my brothers card that he paid with. Your views please - thanks

I mean, of course it should go to your brother. Sorry but your in-law is being a CF.

Just to add - if in-law does claim the n other family members would feel that they should receive their compensation and not brother who paid .

If you invited any costs yourself due to the delay you should get that back. Anything on top needs to go to your brother

The compensation is paid to the named person who made the booking, if he so chooses to share it's that's nice if not he's the one who paid therefore entitled to compensation.

Incurred. Not invited thanks autocorrect

Thank you - that is what I assumed I need some views so that I can approach her with reason on this -

You cannot claim twice for the same event. If the airline is liable the insurance company would expect them to be claimed against first, which would be via the person who booked the flights. Were you all individually insured?

And your in law claiming on her own insurance is clearly separate. If the rest of you had insurance you'd have been able to do that too

We had a similar situation once.....it lead to a massive family fallout. Admittedly it was a slightly worse mess - involving missing bags when going to a wedding etc. Whatever the rights and wrongs just all tread carefully. (In my humble opinion - let your brother have it if he paid for the whole trip....it can offset his expense). The other view is that the compensation is for living expenses during the delay e.g. food and drink. And your other family member did spend on this.

You are unlikely to get much anyway as you got to your destination less than 24 hours late. It's not worth fighting about.

Bookworm

I made the booking and organised everything as main contact person but he paid with his debit card

My reason for asking is that one in- law wants to make a claim on her own insurance which means it would go direct to her

She can claim on her insurance (this is why she took out a policy) and Dbro can claim on his. Im not seeing the issue here. The other people can either also claim on their own policy or learn the abject lesson to take out insurance in the future.

All persons were equally inconvenienced.

It should go to your brother but your in-law may feel their time wasted so wants compensation for that. It's definitely CF territory, she's profiting from it even though she's not paid a penny.

OP
The person who paid is who is compensated, you arrived with a day I doubt there's much to claim except meal costs.

Where was the flight to and from? If Europe then its covered by EU261 legislation and there are rules over who gets the compensation and the amounts. I think it's for the passengers as its for their inconvenience. Any wasted money ie hotels could be claimed by insurance and would be your brothers as he spent the money.

But I am not 100% sure on EU 261 rules so please check yourself.

Change your brother's role to being an employer's role paying for employees rather than relatives to travel and everyone will think the employees should keep the compensation rather than pass it on to the employer.

Compensation for cancellations / lateness etc is intended for the travellers who actually suffered as a result (rather than the person paying for the ticket who wasn't affected). However, given how generous your brother was in paying for these tickets (and visas) in the first place thereby enabling these relatives to travel, the nice thing to do would be for them to give your brother the compensation rather than keeping it. Or at least split it with him.

As far as I understand it, compensation is given to the travellers for the inconvenience caused during travel. So whilst your brother should make the claim (as he made the booking) ideally the travellers should each get a share. Your brother paid for tickets to get from A to B and that was achieved, despite numerous set backs. You’re the individuals who directly experienced those set backs.

We all have insurance that we took out ourselves - Why would we claim against insurance when we can go straight to airline? I understand about extra expenses which will go back to individuals - but I would have thought the ticket should go to my DB.

I think a refund of what was paid should go to the person who paid. They didn’t get what they paid for.

Compensation for the delays and ‘distress and inconvenience’ of having a day wasted should go to the travelers. They were the ones who suffered.

I agree the compensation should go to the individuals. Any compensation will be for the inconvenience of moving airlines & hanging around for hours on end. I cant see why your brother should get everyone's share when you were all inconvenienced

Also we didn't arrive the same day - we arrived the following afternoon instead of the previous afternoon. - the 15 hours were just hanging about airports - they could have put ya up in a hotel and given us the next days flight - but they sent us on another airline which meant basically traveling to the Middle East and back to the West "kind of"- travelling with babies !! If we had wanted that we would have booked that in the first place as it would
Have been cheaper.!

Refund of what paid goes to person who paid. Compensation shared between those who were inconvenienced.

Personally I think that you are all technically entitled to a share. It compensates for extra costs like meals you wouldn't otherwise have brought. If though the extra that you spent wasn't really a lot - you had to eat and drink whist away anyway - then it would be a nice gesture to offer the money back to your brother.

It's worth though making sure your sister doesn't get an enhanced arrangement through her insurance. We do - on top of the standard industry refunds.

Insurance will only pay out over and abo ve the airline comp if it's due
You cannot double dip. The insurer will first of all make sure any airline comp is paid before doing anything further,

The money will be paid to whomever th bookings name was in. I personally would wish my brother to have the money as he paid for everyone's flights and I would not wish to profit from it, whilst he was out of pocket for the initial flights.

So for me it should go to him to offset the money he paid for you all to go there.

Are you referring to EU261 compensation? If so, the law is clear, compensation is due to the individual traveller not the person that booked the tickets. Although the airline may issue one cheque/ payment and expect you to divide it.