5 ms·

Refund.me: making you cash from your flight delays

28 points by itsybaev 14y ago

rb2k_ 14y ago
I used flightright ( http://www.flightright.eu/ http://www.flightright.eu/ ) once when the leap second took down the whole air france booking system. Was a pretty easy process and I got some money back. I like the general idea. Looking at refund.me, I see a service I might want to use but I also see a lot of things that distract me from using the service. Here's an annotated version of the frontpage: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s28/sh/d6d22247-63f2-4ec7-9678-f1ca7af1bd69/4c6b1666d38135a7eebc3a2ad0e17fde https://www.evernote.com/shard/s28/sh/d6d22247-63f2-4ec7-967... (this might sound harsh, but I really like what you guys are doing :) )
- sebkomianos 14y ago
  Hey rb2k_, cool comment! Care to "alpha test" my MVP in about a week's time?
  - rb2k_ 14y ago
    I don't currently have a grudge with any airline :)
joezydeco 14y ago
Here I was thinking it was a travel booking website that tried to find the least-optimal flight schedule on planes that were always overbooked, increasing your chances for a bump & compensation. So if anyone wants to work on that idea, I'm all for it.
- 1337biz 14y ago
  Running a professional bump&compensation fund sounds like a fun project. Would love to see how this works out. At the same time it would be a consumer-protection service as it would de-incentivize airlines from overbooking flights.
  - PeterisP 14y ago
    Actually, all the stuff that I read about overbooking flights seems strange, as I (and my colleagues) have flown a lot and have never even seen such an incident of overbooking. It may be that excessive overbooking is an USA-specific issue, and here in EU airlines are already deincentivized from this due to the compensations they would have to pay.
    - bazzargh 14y ago
      I've had it happen to me 4 times (BA, BM) on the Friday flights back to Glasgow. Compensated every time, in all but one case cash in hand. I was also offered an overnight stay in Prague when they overbooked my flight back to Schipol, but unfortunately I'd switched flights to Zurich moments before they told me. I did have one odd delay with EasyJet - not due to overcrowding - where our plane from Luton to Glasgow was reassigned to a flight to Malta - probably because they were about to hit the limit for compensation - and Stelios, then the owner of the airline, took the flight up with us to apologise in person to every passenger.
    - rtpg 14y ago
      it's more that it happens a lot in very concentrated periods. There's are things like 3 day blocks in the summer where it happens a lot, and outside of that it disappears. FYI, the compensation paid by the airlines is decent (new ticket(bumped to business) + 800 dollars for an int'l flight). These are FAA rules, not EU. I am not sure of the EU compensation scheme but I think it's around the same idea.
    - dguaraglia 14y ago
      I experienced it once, while flying back to Brazil from London using British Airways. They fucked up so badly, they were asking for volunteers the first day (I volunteered, got paid £450 + hotel, a sweet deal if you ask me), and then again next day. I've seen it happen again on a trip from Buenos Aires to SF. I think this phenomenon is probably more noticeable in infrequent (daily or so) 'important' (read: long and expensive) flights people are unlikely to forget about or cancel at the last minute.
    - 14y ago
- kintamanimatt 14y ago
  That's hilarious but there's something really unethical about that though!
  - joezydeco 14y ago
    Perhaps. But one can argue that overselling flights is unethical as well. And yet it goes on every day.
robertskmiles 14y ago
Seems to me that this app doesn't use any advanced android features, so requiring android 4.0 is needlessly excluding a lot of potential customers. Edit: Almost 60% of android users, in fact. [1] [1]: http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
- nemothekid 14y ago
  In my experience, this usually occurs because you naively use a seemingly simple API function that only supports 4.0, but would take significant time to backport. (I've done this accidently with the DownloadManager API when I needed to support pre-Gingerbread apps).
jedberg 14y ago
This entire business is predicated on a government sanctioned extortion of the airlines. The moment this thing gets popular, the airlines would lobby the government heavily to remove the regulations and tank the business. A good idea while it lasts though. :)
- PeterisP 14y ago
  As if they weren't lobbying already for many years. No, here in EU legislators actually do pay more attention to consumer rights than companies - at least in the mass-markets that they understand, unlike software. This legislation has been here for a long time and will stay, although the manual process is a bit of a hassle, it's still worth the money. And it's not extortion, it's how a normal deal should work - we had an agreement and I paid you to do X; you didn't fulfill your part and caused me damages (wasted time, missed connection flights, etc) - so pay up. In USA the same principle (damages from breach of contract) should apply, simply there it's too expensive to enforce your rights, so airlines get away with shafting you.
  - rtpg 14y ago
    I don't understand why there's this myth that there are no rules in the US. http://www.consumertraveler.com/today/dots-new-rules-%E2%80%94-overbooking-tarmac-delays-lost-baggage/ http://www.consumertraveler.com/today/dots-new-rules-%E2%80%...
brucehart 14y ago
I can't remember the name of it, but there is a company that does something similar for shipping delays with UPS and FedEx. A company that ships a lot of packages can get thousands in rebates since a percentage of those deliveries will probably be late. Are there any other industries where rebates often go unclaimed?
- aberkowitz 14y ago
  I think the service you're thinking of is called PackageFox.
  - brucehart 14y ago
    Yes, that's it!

28 points by itsybaev 14y ago

rb2k_ 14y ago

I used flightright ( http://www.flightright.eu/ http://www.flightright.eu/ ) once when the leap second took down the whole air france booking system. Was a pretty easy process and I got some money back. I like the general idea. Looking at refund.me, I see a service I might want to use but I also see a lot of things that distract me from using the service. Here's an annotated version of the frontpage: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s28/sh/d6d22247-63f2-4ec7-9678-f1ca7af1bd69/4c6b1666d38135a7eebc3a2ad0e17fde https://www.evernote.com/shard/s28/sh/d6d22247-63f2-4ec7-967... (this might sound harsh, but I really like what you guys are doing :) )

sebkomianos 14y ago
Hey rb2k_, cool comment! Care to "alpha test" my MVP in about a week's time?
- rb2k_ 14y ago
  I don't currently have a grudge with any airline :)

joezydeco 14y ago

Here I was thinking it was a travel booking website that tried to find the least-optimal flight schedule on planes that were always overbooked, increasing your chances for a bump & compensation. So if anyone wants to work on that idea, I'm all for it.

1337biz 14y ago
Running a professional bump&compensation fund sounds like a fun project. Would love to see how this works out. At the same time it would be a consumer-protection service as it would de-incentivize airlines from overbooking flights.
- PeterisP 14y ago
  Actually, all the stuff that I read about overbooking flights seems strange, as I (and my colleagues) have flown a lot and have never even seen such an incident of overbooking. It may be that excessive overbooking is an USA-specific issue, and here in EU airlines are already deincentivized from this due to the compensations they would have to pay.
  - bazzargh 14y ago
    I've had it happen to me 4 times (BA, BM) on the Friday flights back to Glasgow. Compensated every time, in all but one case cash in hand. I was also offered an overnight stay in Prague when they overbooked my flight back to Schipol, but unfortunately I'd switched flights to Zurich moments before they told me. I did have one odd delay with EasyJet - not due to overcrowding - where our plane from Luton to Glasgow was reassigned to a flight to Malta - probably because they were about to hit the limit for compensation - and Stelios, then the owner of the airline, took the flight up with us to apologise in person to every passenger.
  - rtpg 14y ago
    it's more that it happens a lot in very concentrated periods. There's are things like 3 day blocks in the summer where it happens a lot, and outside of that it disappears. FYI, the compensation paid by the airlines is decent (new ticket(bumped to business) + 800 dollars for an int'l flight). These are FAA rules, not EU. I am not sure of the EU compensation scheme but I think it's around the same idea.
  - dguaraglia 14y ago
    I experienced it once, while flying back to Brazil from London using British Airways. They fucked up so badly, they were asking for volunteers the first day (I volunteered, got paid £450 + hotel, a sweet deal if you ask me), and then again next day. I've seen it happen again on a trip from Buenos Aires to SF. I think this phenomenon is probably more noticeable in infrequent (daily or so) 'important' (read: long and expensive) flights people are unlikely to forget about or cancel at the last minute.
  - 14y ago
kintamanimatt 14y ago
That's hilarious but there's something really unethical about that though!
- joezydeco 14y ago
  Perhaps. But one can argue that overselling flights is unethical as well. And yet it goes on every day.

robertskmiles 14y ago

Seems to me that this app doesn't use any advanced android features, so requiring android 4.0 is needlessly excluding a lot of potential customers. Edit: Almost 60% of android users, in fact. [1] [1]: http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

nemothekid 14y ago
In my experience, this usually occurs because you naively use a seemingly simple API function that only supports 4.0, but would take significant time to backport. (I've done this accidently with the DownloadManager API when I needed to support pre-Gingerbread apps).

jedberg 14y ago

This entire business is predicated on a government sanctioned extortion of the airlines. The moment this thing gets popular, the airlines would lobby the government heavily to remove the regulations and tank the business. A good idea while it lasts though. :)

PeterisP 14y ago
As if they weren't lobbying already for many years. No, here in EU legislators actually do pay more attention to consumer rights than companies - at least in the mass-markets that they understand, unlike software. This legislation has been here for a long time and will stay, although the manual process is a bit of a hassle, it's still worth the money. And it's not extortion, it's how a normal deal should work - we had an agreement and I paid you to do X; you didn't fulfill your part and caused me damages (wasted time, missed connection flights, etc) - so pay up. In USA the same principle (damages from breach of contract) should apply, simply there it's too expensive to enforce your rights, so airlines get away with shafting you.
- rtpg 14y ago
  I don't understand why there's this myth that there are no rules in the US. http://www.consumertraveler.com/today/dots-new-rules-%E2%80%94-overbooking-tarmac-delays-lost-baggage/ http://www.consumertraveler.com/today/dots-new-rules-%E2%80%...

brucehart 14y ago

I can't remember the name of it, but there is a company that does something similar for shipping delays with UPS and FedEx. A company that ships a lot of packages can get thousands in rebates since a percentage of those deliveries will probably be late. Are there any other industries where rebates often go unclaimed?

aberkowitz 14y ago
I think the service you're thinking of is called PackageFox.
- brucehart 14y ago
  Yes, that's it!