Originally Posted by
kasuupo
Hi,
Could somebody give me some guidance on how to claim the compensation from Air Berlin in the correct way ? I already posted a claim of 600€ per person via their customer queries on their webpages but should I have done this by attaching the official EU 261/2004 document filled in ?
Our family of 4 were on a flight from Berlin to Miami on March 8th. Somewhere above UK, the captain said we had to return to Germany because of technical problems in the plane. We ended finally in Munich and they re-routed us (after queing 4.5 hours at the AB counter at the airport for rebooking) for the following day with Lufthansa via Frankfurt to Miami. We arrived 24 hours later than scheduled. They kept telling us at the airport that we can claim compensation for this but nobody really told us how.
Anyway - so I send the request for compensation via their website but just want to make sure I didn't miss the essential - the official EU claim paper. Is that needed ? I assume they get all the details of our flight based on the bookingnumber etc. though. How long do you expect it to take before any response from Air Berlin? I got an confirmation by email that they have received my message but that of course was just an automated message.
Thank you in advance for your comments and help!
Today finally got an response from Air Berlin after sending another reminder of my claim through their website. The result was as expected:
"We regret that your flight did not take place as planned and we would like to apologize for the resulting inconvenience.
As an apology we will grant you a travel voucher in the amount of 250 EUR on your next reservation with us for a flight with airberlin and NIKI.
As soon as you submit the new booking number and your international bank details (name of the bank, IBAN and SWIFT codes) / (name of the bank, account no., routing no.) by fax (+49 / 30 / 3434 1909) or e-mail (
[email protected]) together with our reference XXXXXXXX we will credit your booking account accordingly.
Should you have booked your new flight as part of a package tour that includes transportation with airberlin and NIKI, we ask you to submit the booking confirmation and boarding passes after completion of your journey. Kindly include your bank details and we will retroactively process a transfer.
This voucher can be redeemed until 31/05/2016. Any form of resale is prohibited and does not entitle the buyer to claim the discount.
We look forward to welcoming you on board a future airberlin and NIKI flight.
Kind regards,
airberlin customer rervice"
So instead of compensating 600€ per person (we were 3 persons on this reservation), they offer in total a 250€ compensation from our next reservation (or so I interpret this answer). Not going to happen
So I guess the next step is then to contact one of the German lawfirms specialized in these cases and try my look there. From what I have read in previous posts, this haggling could on for ever if I now respond that this is not acceptable. Maybe a faster and better option is to pay a 25-30% comission to the lawfirm and have this thing over and done.