Here's Our Latest Flight Cancellation Story and how we got over $900 from it

We were in our hotel room at CDG getting ready for a totally normal travel day. I had our day all planned out, we'd have breakfast at the hotel, a little time to shop the terminal for tea and at the pharmancy,  plenty of buffer to get through immigration without the stress of missing our flight.

While we were getting packed up, I checked my phone. The alert from Delta said, Your flight has been canceled. Canceled, same day, hours before we were supposed to leave.

Delta had already rebooked us, but not onto anything close to what we'd had. We'd been upgraded to Comfort+ months ago. The new flight was economy, seats to be assigned at the gate, and when we checked, the only seats left were middle seats and not even next to each other. This wasn't okay with us.

So Scott got on the phone with Delta customer service. After some back and forth, they got us onto a completely different routing that we thought we could make: CDG to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to Atlanta, Atlanta to Jacksonville, sooooo three legs instead of our original one, but aisle seats across from each other on the long haul.

Long story short, the flight from MSP to ATL was also delayed, and we missed the JAX leg, but Delta put us up for the night and gave us food credits BUT...

Here's the thing we didn't realize at the time: we could still be compensated for this flight cancellation, even though we left on the same day and had paid for the flight with points. 

I use TripIt to track my itinerary bookings and flights, and it suggested that since the flight was canceled, I try to get compensation through AirHelp. I had heard of AirHelp before but had never used it. I figured it couldn't hurt, especially since the EU is pretty strict about customers getting compensation for delayed and canceled flights. 

I filed the claim with AirHelp, sent them our original booking confirmations, and asked them to try to get the compensation from Delta. A few weeks later, they notified me that Delta had agreed to compensation, over $900 for both of us, for a flight we paid for with points.

So, if your flight has ever been canceled or seriously delayed, here's what we learned and what we think you should know. We're explaining what the law says depending on where in the world you're flying and what AirHelp actually does.

So what is AirHelp, actually?

AirHelp checks whether your canceled or delayed flight qualifies for compensation, then does the actual fighting with the airline for you. You give them your flight details (so be sure to keep your original booking confirmations and/or boarding passes); they tell you whether you have a case, and then they work with the airline to get the compensation. if the airline lowballs or stalls,  AirHelp takes it further,  including legal action if it comes to that because they have lawyers on their team.

We didn't have to call Delta, we didn't have to argue with anyone, and we didn't have to know the law ourselves or go through mountains of forms (we have tried that before; it took months and lots of follow-up, and only got the taxes back). We just uploaded our documents from our phone. 

How much does it cost to use AirHelp?

Airhelp works on contingency, which means they only get paid if they get compensation for you, which honestly is why we bothered filing at all. We had nothing to lose by checking, and we hadn't planned on trying to file anything with the airline anyway because I wouldn't have even known where to start. They take a percentage (35% normally and 50% if they have to get lawyers involved but they also have plans where they take a lower percentage), but it's totally up to you if you want to just stick with the free basic plan, which is what we did. 

How much can you actually get compensated?

This is where most people underestimate what they're owed, because the rules change depending on where your flight departed from, when it departed, and how much it was delayed or canceled. 

By the way,  things could change, but this information is current as of August 2026, when we are sharing it with you. 

Flying to, from, or within the EU: EU261

If your flight departed an EU airport (any airline), or landed in the EU on an EU-based carrier, you're covered by EU261,  widely considered the most passenger-friendly aviation law in the world. If your flight is canceled with less than 14 days' notice, delayed 3+ hours at arrival, or you're denied boarding due to overbooking, you're entitled to fixed cash compensation on top of any refund or rerouting, and this is not a refund of your ticket price; it's an additional fixed sum set by distance:

In general,

• €250 for flights under 1,500 km
• €400 for flights between 1,500–3,500 km
• €600 for flights over 3,500 km

EU261 applies to all flights from EU airports, as well as flights to the EU operated by EU airlines, meaning even if you're a U.S. citizen with no EU residency, a flight departing Paris still gives you these rights. A revision to EU261 passed the European Parliament in mid-2026, but the compensation amounts and the 3-hour threshold survived unchanged, so the numbers above still apply.

Flying to or from the UK: UK261

Post-Brexit, the UK kept its own near-identical version of the law, called UK261, your flight arrives at its final destination three or more hours late, and the cause was within the airline's control, UK261 gives you a fixed cash payment of £220, £350, or £520 per passenger, set by how far the flight was delayed. The same 14-day cancellation-notice rule applies.

Flying within, to, or from the US: DOT rules

Here's the part that trips up many American travelers: the US does not have an EU261 equivalent. There's no fixed cash payout for a delay or cancellation, as there is in Europe. There is no US law requiring cash compensation for delays the way EU261 does across the Atlantic, so if your flight is three hours late but still operates and you fly on it, you are not owed a set amount under any federal rule.

Under Department of Transportation rules, you are entitled to an automatic refund when your flight is canceled, and you don't accept rebooking or compensation, covering the full ticket price plus taxes and fees. This applies to significant delays, which are generally 3+ hours for domestic flights and 6+ hours for international flights, and no formal claim is required; airlines are supposed to detect the cancellation and initiate the refund process on their own.

The bottom line: in the US, think "refund," not "compensation." If you're involuntarily bumped from an oversold flight, that's a separate category with its own cash payouts, which can run into the thousands depending on the delay's length.

Flying to, from, or within Canada: APPR

Canada's Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR) land somewhere between the US and EU approach. If your flight to, from, or within Canada arrives three or more hours late and the cause was within the airline's control, a large carrier owes you CAD 400, rising to CAD 700 at six hours and CAD 1,000 at nine hours. Smaller regional carriers owe less than a large airline: the cutoff is having carried at least 2 million passengers worldwide in each of the two preceding calendar years.

Anywhere else?

A handful of other countries, ie. Israel, Turkey, and Brazil, among others, have passed their own versions of this law, generally modeled after EU261. If your trip touches one of those, don't assume you're not covered just because you've never heard of the rule. Honestly, that's the whole reason we like having AirHelp check for us instead of trying to figure out the jurisdiction ourselves.

FAQ about Your passenger rights

Here's a few FAQ we found that people ask:

How can I get compensated for my canceled flight in the US? In the US, there's no EU261-style cash payout for a regular cancellation. You are guaranteed a full cash refund if the airline cancels, and you decline their rebooking. If you got bumped off an oversold flight involuntarily, that's different and can actually pay out well. And if any leg of your trip touched the EU or UK, as ours did, check eligibility under those laws too, even on a US-booked ticket.

How do I claim compensation for a canceled flight? You can go straight to the airline, and most have a claims form buried somewhere on their site. If they deny you, lowball you, or just go quiet (which, in our experience, is what usually happens), that's when a service like AirHelp is worth it. They know the process better than we ever will, and they don't get worn down the way we would after an hour on hold.

What services help passengers claim money for canceled flights? AirHelp is the name we used and the one we'd point you to, but there are a few similar services out there. What they all do is the same core thing: know the law better than the airline's phone reps do, and actually push when the airline tries to brush you off.

What are my passenger rights for flight cancellations? It completely depends on where you departed from and who operated the flight, so see the breakdown above. This is the thing that trips up almost everyone: assuming US rules apply just because you're American, when really it's about where the plane took off.

Are there apps that help with flight cancellation compensation claims? Yes, AirHelp has an app, and honestly, filing from your phone, standing in our kitchen when I saw the TripIt notification that I might get compensated (like we did), is about as painless as this kind of thing gets.

How do I file a compensation claim with an airline? You'll want your booking confirmation, your boarding pass, and a quick rundown of what happened. Airlines are technically required to tell you your rights, but nobody's making the claims form easy to find, so expect to dig a little or use the rule guides above for help.

Which companies specialize in recovering flight compensation? AirHelp is the big one, alongside a few other no-win-no-fee services in this space. Since most work on contingency, there's genuinely no downside to just checking.

What documents are needed for canceled flight reimbursement? Your boarding pass, your original booking confirmation, and anything the airline sent you about the change, whether email, app alert, text message, or even just a photo of the departure board. Which brings us to the one habit we will always do (because I actually deleted my original boarding pass, which i never do and I usually have a dozen or so old ones in my Apple wallet).

What to always screenshot (and don't delete) when traveling in case this happens

If we took one thing away from this flight cancellation experience, it was this: the second something goes sideways, grab a picture or a screenshot of these before you do anything else:

• Your boarding pass, before it disappears from your wallet app or gets swapped out for a new one
• A photo of the departure board showing the cancellation or delay, with the time visible
• The app or email notification from the airline, timestamp and all
• Your original booking confirmation, showing the flight number and scheduled departure time
• Your rebooking confirmation, once you've been moved to a new flight
• Receipts for anything you paid out of pocket, food, a hotel, a taxi,  since those can sometimes be reimbursed separately from the compensation itself

I only needed either the original boarding pass or the original confirmation number, and I was able to submit the information for myself and for Scott. It took me about 5 minutes total to file the claim, and within a few weeks, it was the difference between $0 and over $900. 

We almost didn't bother filing because it was a points ticket, we had a same-day rebooking, but it turned out we would have left over $900 on the table if we hadn't filed. If a flight of yours has been canceled or seriously delayed recently, it's worth five minutes to go check.

Bookmark this page so that when you have a delayed or canceled flight, you can click back here, head over to AirHelp, and see what you might actually be owed. But don't wait for someday to check; some of these claims have deadlines.

After using AirHelp, we decided it was definitely a travel resource worth sharing, and so some of the links in this post are our AirHelp affiliate links. If you file a claim through them, we may earn a small commission at no cost to you. We only recommend things we've actually used ourselves, so this whole post exists because of the over $900 in compensation that was deposited into our account from our canceled flight.  See our disclosure.