I think we may be eligible for compensation under EU 261 for a late arrival but am not sure, so I thought I'd ask for advice here and ask who I should contact.

Tickets for 3/17/15, BLR to MSP, were booked online through United; this was our return flight on our itinerary and was a codeshare with Lufthansa. Our itinerary was BLR-FRA-ORD-MSP.

BLR to FRA was United 8897 operated by Lufthansa. We were on a Lufthansa plane. Everything went well for our arrival in FRA.

FRA to ORD was UA8836 operated by Lufthansa. We were on a Lufthansa plane (LH 0430) that was due to arrive ORD at 14:05. Our next flight (UA3684) was scheduled at 15:40 ORD to MSP. Here is where our problems began when we missed this connection.

Our Lufthansa flight from FRA actually touched down early, but we sat on the tarmac for about an hour because there was no gate. Apparently United had forgotten to have their empty plane removed from the gate. (I am not sure of actual arrival time since we were jet-lagged and had already been travelling for 24 hours.) We were on a 747 and were told that there are only three gates at ORD that will accommodate a plane that large.

The captain started making announcements that many passengers were now worried about making connecting flights, and he said that there would be United staff at the gate to help passengers connect and make their flights. Of course, there were no United personnel to be seen anywhere.

We finally cleared immigration and customs but then had to make our way from Terminal 5 (where our flight landed) to Terminal 1 (where our next flight was to depart). We got on the train and ran and were lucky with TSA precheck. But, when we got to the gate, although the plane hadn't left, boarding was done and the jetway had been removed.

The gate agent and a supervisor who happened to be there told us that we would be confirmed on a flight leaving at 20:35 (five hours later) but also issued us stand-by tickets for a flight leaving at 17:23 since that was a good possibility. The agent told us to go to that flight's gate, and the agent there would most likely put us at the top of the stand-by list since we had missed our connection due to a late arriving FRA flight.

So, we went to the gate for the 17:23 flight where there was a huge stand-by list, and, of course, we were no where near the top. That gate agent for that flight told us that since we are just regular MileagePlus members without status we'd be way down on the list since those with status are given first preference on stand-by. I looked around and tried to find a supervisor and even had a gate agent page one since I wanted to get a true story on where we were ranked in stand-by pecking order. The paged supervisor never arrived, and as I was walking back to the gate for the 17:23 flight, wanting to be around in case a miracle happened and we got on, I ran into a supervisor. He told me that the entire stand-by list is computerized with those with status being at the top. There is nothing a human being can do. And the fact that we had already endured two ten hour flights and had missed our final connection through no fault of our own didn't matter as far as stand-by status.

Needless to say, we didn't get seats on the 17:23 flight, and they didn't have two seats on the flight after that because we tried for that one too on stand-by. So, we finally took the confirmed flight at 20:35 and arrived in MSP at about 21:55, about 4.75 hours after our original booked arrival time of 17:16.

So, do you think are we eligible for compensation under EU261? If so, who do I contact? Lufthansa or United? My understanding is that the final arrival time on the entire booked flight sequence is what triggers compensation. We arrived about 4.75 hours late.

And, did I post this in the wrong category?

Thanks so much.