Claim it yourself or use a claim company?

On this page 5

1. What they charge
2. When doing it yourself is obviously right
3. When paying someone is defensible
4. The middle option people forget
5. How we are paid, so you can weigh this

What they charge

The model is the same across the industry: no win, no fee, and a percentage of what they recover. Published fees cluster around 30-35% of the compensation including VAT, rising towards 50% where the firm has to take the airline to court. On a €600 long-haul claim that is roughly €200 for a claim you could have made with one email, or around €300 if it escalates.

Read for two things specifically. First, whether the percentage is taken before or after VAT, which moves the real cut by several points. Second, what happens to the airline's non-compensation payments — some firms take their cut of refunded hotels and meals too, which you would have received in full by claiming yourself.

When doing it yourself is obviously right

• The cause was plainly the airline's: a technical fault, crew shortage, or anything they described as operational.
• It is a UK or EU airline, which means a regulator and a small claims process you can actually reach.
• The delay is comfortably over the threshold rather than borderline.
• Nobody has refused you yet.

In that situation the whole job is the template letter and perhaps one chase email. Handing over a third of it buys you nothing.

When paying someone is defensible

• The airline has already refused and is relying on extraordinary circumstances. Contesting that means knowing the case law and being willing to file. Firms do this daily.
• The airline is outside the UK, EU or Canada. Enforcing against a carrier with no local presence is genuinely hard.
• The claim is old. Near the limitation period, a firm that can file quickly is worth more than the fee.
• You will otherwise never get round to it. The brutal truth about most claims is that they expire unclaimed. Two thirds of a real payment beats all of a theoretical one.

The middle option people forget

Many UK airlines are signed up to an ADR scheme, and the CAA's own complaints route is free. These take months, but they cost nothing and the decision binds the airline. If your objection to doing it yourself is the court filing rather than the emailing, the ADR route removes exactly that step without costing you a third of the money.

How we are paid, so you can weigh this

Some links to claim companies on this site earn us a commission if you use them, paid out of the firm's fee rather than added to it. That is a reason to be sceptical of us, so we have tried to earn the opposite: the guide above is built to talk you out of needing them, and the template letter is free and complete. We would rather be the site you trust than the site that converted you.