On my way home from my first group trip to Ecuador, I kept hearing about cancellations and delays from the other women on my trip. Everyone’s flights were different because we all had different needs and plans before and after our group trip. While Kate and I were genuinely lucky to not have our plans thwarted, hearing everyone else’s woes had me thinking about flight cancellation compensation.
On the way to Ecuador I had one women have a delayed flight that meant she almost missed the first night of our group trip and one woman’s luggage was delayed. While these events didn’t ruin their trip, they were annoyances that, though resolved, could’ve had much bigger impacts on their trip.
‘But on the way home I heard insane stories. One flight was cancelled out of Quito which meant two women had to cancel the last day of their trip to get back home in time to go back to work. One of these women didn’t find out until she was in the airport that her alternative would’ve been to fly from Ecuador to Peru for 2 days where she could snag her flight back to the U.S. Like, what?! How does that make sense?! ‘But on the way home I heard insane stories. One flight was cancelled out of Quito which meant two women had to cancel the last day of their trip to get back home in time to go back to work. One of these women didn’t find out until she was in the airport that her alternative would’ve been to fly from Ecuador to Peru for 2 days where she could snag her flight back to the U.S. Like, what?! How does that make sense?!
Nothing wrecks a trip like having a flight cancelled. And, here’s the thing, it sucks on either end of the trip. You hate to miss out on time on your trip that you’ve diligently planned, taken time off for and don’t want to miss out on. Also, when it’s time to come home, nothing in the world sounds better once those wheels are in motion and the idea of a flight being cancelled feels brutal. I’m just unbelievably grateful that I wasn’t one of the people who had to navigate the frustrations of a cancelled flight.
After coming home, I was looking into this more and I realized there’s a site that covers compensation, not only from current flights, but even on flights up to three years ago! In both the US and the EU, there are laws, and even some airline policies, that protect travelers from certain scenarios that cause flight delays and especially cancellations, but not everyone know that. Heck, I didn’t even know that until a handful of days ago! These can end up saving you a lot of money, getting you fair compensation and ensuring your airline experience goes as smoothly as possible. Also, fun fact, these tend to get more and more generous with international flights.
While travelers insurance does cover a lot of aspects of travel, that doesn’t always cover all reasons for cancellation or delay and you can still claim compensation form the airline as well if it isn’t for the exact same out of pocket expenses. In order to find out more information on this, it’s good to know your rights. Luckily there are sites like AirHelp to help you figure out if your flight cancellation or delay is one that owes you money. Plus, like I said earlier, you can even check out cancelled flights from up to three years ago! That’s super handy.
While I’m incredibly grateful I got to enjoy the entirety of my trip to Ecuador with no real delays and no cancellations, I also know that there’s an element of luck that goes with that. Now that I know there are websites out there to help me make sure that I’m taken care if I were to have a cancelled flight, it makes me just a little more carefree about flying.
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