> Fire and Motion, for small companies like mine, means two things. You have to have time on your side, and you have to move forward every day. Sooner or later you will win.
It's interesting to reflect on this 20 years later. Can we say that FogCreek won?..
Probably just there for legal reasons. They do mention their compensation on the site however.
> If successful, we transfer your money to you immediately. If the airline refunds your ticket within 7 days, our service is free of charge. After that, you only pay if we are successful (commission 14-28% plus VAT). For compensation claims, the commission is usually 20-30 % (plus VAT).
If it's under 7 days it's probably because the airline is just less sketchy and it's super easy for them to get the money for you. The ones that take longer are probably the ones that are a bigger pain in the butt.
Had a similar story with British Airways. My flight was cancelled last moment and I was rebooked for the next day - changing my direct flight to an inconvenient connection and arriving to the final destination over 24hrs late.
When I filled out compensation form they first lied to me about who operated the flight: it's not us, it's our codeshare! Once we sorted it out they lied about the distance: your disrupted journey was less than 1,500km, so here is less then half of your compensation (for a flight from London to San Francisco). I eventually got my full compensation, but it took several months of back and forth.
Airlines will absolutely lie to you, in writing, about the things that are trivial to verify. I guess there's no downside to them - in the best case some people may settle for no or smaller compensation, in the worst case they pay what they were supposed to pay anyway.
AF also tried to pull the codeshare thing with me once. Didn't want to go around in circles with customer service and found it easier to initiate litigation. AF then hired a big law firm to defend the tiny case.
A week before a scheduled court hearing their lawyer calls me to negotiate. I tell her there is nothing to negotiate about, and she agrees. We chat for an hour anyway which was surely billed to her client AF. I receive full payment two days later.
Interesting, I had a comp case with BA but it was very easy. Likely because they were clearly at fault (mechanical failure) but all I had to do was fill in one form and I had my money 3 months later.
I think the experience is circumstantial and definitely depends on how 'obviously' in fault the airlines is. All in all I came out with a profit of £200 but can't say 24 hours at an airport is worth it honestly.
It's interesting to reflect on this 20 years later. Can we say that FogCreek won?..