As the airline industry steadily recovers from the impact of COVID-19, it contends with an uptick in delays and cancellations. While the U.S. doesn't have notable customer protections, there is still hope for travelers. Brian Kelly, AKA The Points Guy, joined TheStreet to discuss how travelers can maximize compensation in the event of a travel mishap.
Full Video Transcript Below:
J.D. DURKIN: We're not all lawyers. We don't all have time to go through the fine print. But there are a lot of protections that passengers have for a lot of those instances. If you have a flight canceled or for a hotel voucher that you might not know of. How important is it for you to encourage people to say, hey, if you got a little bit of extra bandwidth, make sure you do your homework to set yourself up for success?
BRIAN KELLY: Unfortunately so all there really is, it's up to each airline to decide what to do. Legally in the United States, all the airlines owe you is refund. So if they delay you three days, they don't even really owe you a hotel. Now, some airlines have come out and said, as part of our customer service policy, we will give you a hotel voucher and on the DOT website. The DOT can't force airlines. There needs to be legislation by our Congress that mandates consumer protections. They do this in Europe. It's called EU 261. If your flight is delayed or canceled to going to or from the EU, you are owed certain amounts of compensation and it's no questions asked and it's given to consumers.
That hasn't happened in the U.S. So we would need legislation. So what I would say to people when your flights are canceled, you can go to that DOT traveler dashboard. But what people don't realize is go to your credit card company. Most travel credit cards have flight delay and cancellation protection for flights delayed over six hours. You can actually get reimbursement from your credit card company, if you had to get a rental car, hotel, et cetera. You can still file with the airline. It never hurts to ask. So always file with your airline, you know, send a complaint, be succinct. But what people forget is the credit card companies are the ones with money. Go to them for compensation when things go wrong.
