Advice needed wrt. 24 hours worth of delays

I was scheduled to fly BRU-PHL on US715 today (in Y), and then on to RSW on US1167. Due to an aircraft problem in BRU (they had to defuel the plane, replace a piece, refuel again) the flight BRU-PHL was delayed more than 5 hours, causing me to miss my connecting flight in PHL.
Still at BRU airport, I called US and asked what my options for a later connection to RSW would be. They said, all planes today were full, so I would have to stay overnight in PHL, or possibly take a 3 segments flight, which would have also caused me to arrive in RSW on the next day.
So, I opted to wait in BRU until tomorrow and stick to my itinerary as planned, only do it 24h later.

I wonder what compensation I can expect for this cock-up. Also, do you have any advice how should I go about requesting a compensation?

Thanks for your advice.

Zam

As this was posted in the pre-merger US Airways archive thread, I'll move it over into the main forum where folks are more inclined to see it.

-AZ
Moderator

I think the timing here is quite important. When did you call US relative to the scheduled departure time? Had you checked-in? Were you even at the airport.

Don't forget EU rules that apply to all carriers leaving the EU. They go something like this in layman's terms for a 5 hour or more delay.........

"€600, for a flight not within EU of greater than 3500 km in distance"

If you changed all this on the phone with US before the scheduled departure time I'm not certain you'd get anything as you did it all voluntarily.

Plus most U.S. carriers treat maintenance issues like that as out of their control to get around the EU regs.

Jim