Get compensation for your travel delays! That money is yours

Travelling is stressful. Delays are awful … and they’re not your fault, therefore more often than not, the company should compensate you for your stress and lost time and money. Read our article to find out how to claim back your money.

Get compensation for your travel delays! That money is yours

PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES … TRAVEL DELAYS

PLANES

Have you flown and been delayed for more than three hours? According to EU rule 261/2004 you may be entitled to between £110 and £510 in compensation.

There are some money saving sites with free claiming tools that can advise you if you have a claim. There have been so many successes since 2012 when it became possible to claim. Airlines will tell you anything to try and get out of paying compensation but if you fit the criteria, you are owed money.

Technically speaking, you can claim back to 2005 for compensation for any past delays but in practice Mr Financial recommends that it’s extremely unlikely you'll be able to go back further than 2014.

TRAINS

Delays and cancellations happen all the time on our railways but lots of people don’t bother claiming back for disruptions to their journeys. Some sites guestimate that £100 million goes unclaimed in compensations every year. The service providers all have their own rules, but they often have simple forms to fill in on their websites where you get a proportion of your ticket returned (or even the full amount if the delay was extensive) and meet their criteria.

10 minutes of admin time at your computer could equate to an £80 ticket refund! Mr Financial certainly thinks that’s time well spent.

Never neglect your Oyster card… in one year, Transport for London charged passengers £60 million across more than 30,000 incomplete journeys (failing to tap out thereby paying the maximum fare).  There’s a really quick way of checking your oyster card and you can claim back up to a year’s charges – maybe close to £100!

If you’re delayed by more than 15 minutes on the tube, you can also apply for a “service delay” refund. To work out whether your delay was over 15 minutes, TfL reviews your touch in and touch out time and compares it to an average journey time.

AUTOMOBILES

With your car, you may get an unfair ticket in a private car park. Do not automatically pay it! These “fines” handed out are actually invoices and quite often unenforceable. Their packaging is very clever and can look very similar to a Penalty Charge Notice, Excess Charge Notice or Fixed Penalty Notice (all of which are official fines).

Make sure you gather as much evidence as you can if you feel that you’ve been given an unfair parking ticket (photographs etc.) and fight the ticket. It’s much easier to fight the ticket than to try and claim the money back.

Fighting an official fine is also worth doing. National figures show that 56% of people who fight tickets, win.

There are many reasons why you can appeal if you think your fine is unfair. For example,

councils offer an amnesty – you won't get a ticket within 10 minutes of the meter, pay and display, pay-by-phone or voucher parking paid-for period ending, as long as you're parked in a council bay. So, this is one of those instances where you need to make sure you have gathered all the evidence you need to fight your cause.

Mr Financial recommends you keep track of all your journeys - £50 here or there might not sounds much to you, but over the years that equates to hundreds or thousands of pounds that rightly should be in your pocket. Don’t be lazy and let these companies get away with keeping your money!

Loading... please wait

Key Equity Release