Know your rights if your flight is delayed or cancelled

Clint Henderson, Managing Editor at ThePointsGuy, says you need to be aware of your rights if you encounter a travel hiccup.

Transcript

00:00So many people are unaware of the Department of Transportation's new rules in terms of

00:05passenger rights. So what exactly are these new rights?

00:09So the Biden administration has been very aggressive about really cracking down on

00:13the airlines who had not always been great about treating customers well in the event

00:17of big delays and cancellations. Now there's a lot of wiggle room still for airlines because

00:24if it's weather, if it's an act of God, then the rules don't really apply.

00:28But I will say the Biden administration has been very aggressive about making the airlines

00:33give refunds more quickly. So if you paid cash, you have to get a cash refund within

00:39a few weeks. Same thing with a credit card. If you pay with a credit card,

00:42you're entitled to a refund. The airlines have also been much better about providing

00:47compensation in the event of long delays. So they're not necessarily going to put you on

00:52a competitor airline or give you a luxury hotel, but they will give you a meal voucher.

00:57And in the case of long delays, say sometimes they will protect you better. So the rules are

01:01getting better for passengers. I still think we need a passenger bill of rights like they

01:05have in Europe, but we're just not there yet. So what should a passenger do if an airline

01:11is giving them a hard time? They want a refund and they go to the airline and say, you know,

01:17my flight's been delayed or my flight's been canceled and I'm supposed to get a refund and

01:23you're telling me that I'm not getting one. So don't fight with the gate agent because it's

01:28never going to be good for you in that situation. I would deal with it after the fact. So I would

01:33just cut my losses if you couldn't get another flight, but call the customer service number,

01:38have other flights in mind when you go to the airport, have like a backup plan.

01:42I always have a plan B and a plan C so I can tell the customer service agent,

01:46Hey, there's an American flight leaving. Say my Delta flight is canceled. There's an American

01:51flight leaving in two hours. Can you put me on that flight? They don't, they won't always say

01:55yes, but sometimes they will. And you should have the customer service phone number in your,

02:00in your phone. You should have the social media accounts. You can ping them on social media

02:04and a little hack for your, for your viewers. If you can't get through to customer service,

02:10say it's a massive weather related meltdown, get the, try to find the customer service number for

02:15the Australia office. Cause sometimes those international call centers are not going to

02:19have weights. Whereas in the U S you might have a long wait for the phone. So you really have to be

02:24your own best advocate. You do have some rights though. And the D O T has a customer dashboard

02:30that you can look up very easily with just a Google search. And it'll tell you what the

02:33airline is required to provide you and what they're not required to provide you.