EU261 Claim rejected after confirming it would be paid - a new low!
 

I was booked on a flight from EZE-FRA-EDI on 6 March in business class.

On arrival at EZE I was advised that as the flight from FRA-EDI was cancelled I could not join the flight in EZE unless I was prepared to make my own way from FRA-EDI. We accepted the alternative of a flight three days later as no earlier flights were available. Lufthansa did arrange and pay for the accommodation in Buenos Aires. We were still out of pocket due to losing three days work (we are self employed) and had excess car park charges of £100 which Lufthansa declined to cover. They did however advise in an email that we were entitled to £520 each EU 261 compensation as we expected.
We sent our bank details to Lufthansa
Tonight Lufthansa have come back with the following email
As your request was sent to processing it was denied as the travel route was outside the EU Buenos Aires, to outside the EU United Kingdom, and Frankfurt is only a stop over it does not qualify for EC compensation. Unfortunately no payment can be made due to these reasons. We thank you for your understanding.
I believed a flight to the UK was fully covered - have I got that wrong or are we screwed by a technicality.
I am also raging that they are back tracking given this previous email
Please accept our sincerest apologies for the delay in response to your claim. After full review of the claim submitted as per EU regulation for country specifics of the UK, you are entitled to a payment of 520 GBP per passenger for a total of 1040 GBP. Unfortunately the extra parking charges and lost wages are not covered under the contract of carriage as this is considered as consequential damages as agreed to when purchasing the ticket. Please provide your bank details so we may initiate the payment. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Am I correct I think that Lufthansa is wrong and I do qualify for the previously communicated amount? And I should challenge Lufthansa but not wait (its taken them 5 weeks and involving the lurker here even to get this far) I should start the MCOL paperwork now

Unfortunately, Lufthansa is correct. Probably during some review they corrected the "result" of compensation inquiry.

In fact, flight "non-EU - EU - non-Eu" (where in EU there is just transfer and not >24hrs stopover) is not covered by EU compensation law, as it is considered as nonEU - nonEU flight.

Wrong ! UK fully adopted into law EU261 as UK261

UK fully adopted EU261 into UK261 & of course Lufthansa are fully aware of that, so their response is a disgrace, you can go back & tell them that or since you are in UK just do MCOL & put all of your claim in, they have no defence

Good point. I was looking on that only from the EU perspective .) my fault.

yes, UK version of 261 covers this.

Thanks, as I suspected, Lufthansa are denying claims erroneously. How many others have been wrongly denied I wonder! I will start the MCOL process in the morning

Then it needs to be requested under UK legislation, not EU legislation :) Of course a decent airline wouldn't play this game, but we're dealing with Lufthansa here. They deny even valid claims.

This but Lufthansa were being disingenuous, OP should additionally report their behaviour to the DE regulator

I was denied last week on the grounds rhat EU261 dis not obtain, but replied to point out the UK Air Passenger Charter applied (https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ssenger-rights), and asked them if they could clarify why my flight (from the UK to a non/EU country) was delayed. I was then offered a refund.

After I mentioned the UK legislation, they said they were "delighted" to offer me a refund after all. It would break my heart to learn this was disingenuous - I prefer to think they are fickle.

I'm afraid that DE regulator will not care, as their remit is only to enforce EC261 not UK261. But UK CAA should care.

Money Claims Online. (Goes offline after a point, but you can submit the claim online.) I won by default because they were between lawyers, but it seems like a skill well worth cultivating given LH customer service leaves a lot to be desired.

Sorry, you already know this and I can't find a delete button! However, I'd suggest giving them a chance to realise their mistake, and give them a decent amount of time to reply, before doing a claim. The Court will probably want to see the direct route exhausted. In my case (the one I did have to go to court for) they eventually more-or-less called me a materialist and added:: "We consider this issue closed" 😀

Am I the only one who is confused that LH was reportedly unable to accommodate the OP on FRA-EDI for 3 days in a row and left the OP stranded in EZE?

You are not the only one. I don't understand this either.

well pardon me for asking the letter of the law be honored :rolleyes: :D

Honestly MCOL is one thing I envy the Brits. I wish EU came together and gave us a Europe-wide small claims structure.

That... is strange to a point. I am leaning though more towards it being EZE-FRA that is unavailable, and the system is being stupid enough not to realize it's better to have pax in FRA being rerouted than EZE (I doubt many people here in the forum would disagree that LH IT is dumb enough to put such a system in place).
A more charitable... maybe... reading is, that there might have been a disruption on FRA-EDI and LH took the chance to have someone stuck in cheaper EZE over more expensive FRA before everyone who already is in Europe is dispersed.