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Exploring the beauty of a foreign country, flying to exotic locales in luxury, sampling outlandish foods, and opening yourself up to new experiences are the best parts of travel. However, reality can sometimes fall short of our expectations, and there are valid situations when travelers need reimbursement for mistakes or setbacks.
If you travel frequently, you're bound to run into situations where the quality of the product or service you receive doesn’t meet your expectations — or what was promised in the first place. But when a company fails to deliver on its promise, what is the most effective way of communicating your complaint so you receive fair compensation for the inconvenience or missed service?
If you're wondering how to get fair compensation for a bad hotel stay or a problematic flight, follow these nine steps.
Page Contents
- 1. The Golden Rule for Hotel or Airline Compensation
- 2. Pinpoint the Issue
- 3. Know Your Rights
- 4. Offer a Potential Solution
- 5. Make Your Complaint Specific and Concise
- 6. Know When To Ask for a Supervisor or Manager (or Not)
- 7. Taking the Matter Higher or to Social Media
- 8. Get Travel Insurance
- 9. Receive Additional Compensation From a Credit Card Provider
- Final Thoughts
1. The Golden Rule for Hotel or Airline Compensation
Before we touch on the specifics of chasing compensation, we want to nail down one simple but overarching rule that should be at the forefront of your mind when voicing your complaints: Be nice.
In other words, try to treat others the way you would want them to treat you. Remember, there's a human at the other end of the customer service center. Or at least we can hope there is. If it's a bot, high emotions definitely won't get you anywhere.
Most people want to help
When dealing with another person, you will get a better outcome if you are calm and polite, show patience, and treat staff respectfully. You don’t have to be cheerful or happy; you can express your displeasure at whatever situation led to your complaints. Yet if you want the best result with staff helping you reach a good outcome, manners and patience will get most of the job done.
Another side of this is that you can be angry but target your anger at the situation, not at the person trying to help you. For example, “I didn't get the room upgrade you promised me” probably won't work well. Instead, try, “It's frustrating that rooms are rarely designed for someone as tall as me; I'm really counting on the room upgrade with the larger bed.”
Finding a common agreement will go a long way toward getting compensation from airlines and hotels.
2. Pinpoint the Issue
One of the most important things you can do is document the issue. Record all the details, such as the time, location, anyone involved, and the precise nature of your complaint. For example, if you’re complaining about a meal or service in a hotel restaurant, take down the employee's name, your table number, the time and date, and a brief description of events.
If you arrive at your hotel and find dirty sheets or the hotel has placed you in a smoky room when you booked a non-smoking one, record the details and take photos of evidence you can find with your phone. This will help when you try to have the issues addressed.
Collecting evidence
If the complaint is about the service on a flight, a delay or cancellation, or even a rude gate agent, record the details as soon as the incident happens. It's a lot easier to recall the facts when you've noted the details. This also adds credibility to your claim and gives the employee fielding your complaint something to copy if the issue cannot be addressed immediately.
But be careful about openly recording a staff member on your phone. This can exacerbate the situation and is outright illegal in some countries. Also, this is a personal matter, not something to blast on social media.
3. Know Your Rights
Many companies (but not all) focus on customer care and have policies in place to prioritize it. Thus, situations like delayed flights, hotel rooms that are not prepared upon arrival, or poorly cooked restaurant meals likely have scripted responses.
Many airlines offer hotel rooms, meals, vouchers, and/or cash payouts for delayed flights. Hotels often offer a room upgrade if the room assigned to you is not ready at check-in time. Many restaurants offer a voucher or free item if they send out a dish that is underprepared or otherwise inedible.
You should also be informed about the compensation an airline or hotel naturally offers for mistakes or misfortunes. In these situations, receiving fair compensation likely won't require any effort beyond bringing it to the company's attention. Sometimes, there's a form to fill out that you can do yourself — or you can use a service like AirHelp to help you navigate the claims process.
Related: Claiming Compensation for a Delayed, Overbooked, or Canceled Flight in the US and EU
4. Offer a Potential Solution
It’s also important to know how you want the problem rectified before making a complaint. Focus on a realistic action or compensation from the provider proportionate to the issue you’re presenting.
Does one cockroach warrant a free room? Probably not. If the hotel has mistakenly placed you in a room reeking of cigarette smoke, are you within your rights to ask for another room? Absolutely. Receive a free drink at the bar while your room is prepared? That's certainly fair. After all, as the saying goes, you don't get what you don't ask for.
But if you charge in commanding more than the issue warrants, you come across as entitled and demanding. This also destroys any goodwill or motivation the agent dealing with the problem may have towards you.
Expected airline compensation
In the case of delayed or canceled flights in Europe — and coming to the U.S., too — chances are you're entitled to monetary compensation and possibly food, transport, and a hotel for longer delays.
However, if your complaint is about in-flight service, that's a different matter. You’ll want to record the flight details, time, names if you have them, and the events that took place. Present these to the onboard supervisor when your flight reaches its destination — even something as simple as a broken in-seat entertainment screen.
Take a quick video that you can show a supervisor later. This is also valuable when communicating your complaint via email or even social media.
5. Make Your Complaint Specific and Concise
Make your complaint specific, and stick to the topic. If a reservation agent copped a bad attitude, don’t complain that you received “bad service from the reservation team.” Call out the specific staff member and what they said. “Janine from reservations was abrasive and complained that I sounded like another rude traveler when she thought she had put me on hold.” Be specific.
Furthermore, try to avoid expressing opinions. Stick to the facts. This will shorten the conversation and make it easier for the customer service team to respond.
Have a plan
It also pays to stick to the point. If you have a laundry list of complaints, don’t let them all out in a single, long-winded breath. Shorten your complaints into bullets and include how you want each particular problem addressed — or provide one solution to all the issues presented if they all fall under the same general topic.
Moreover, countless travelers apply for airline or hotel compensation, often resulting in stressed and overworked staff. Anything you can do to make their job easier will go a long way toward resolving the situation.
6. Know When To Ask for a Supervisor or Manager (or Not)
Give the person in front of you the opportunity to fix the problem before asking to see a senior staff member. Experienced front desk agents are often empowered to rectify situations. In these cases, a supervisor or manager doesn't need to step in, and asking for one might just slow things down.
Moving or upgrading rooms and free food and drink at an onsite restaurant — a front desk employee can handle these complaints more often than you might expect.
If you feel the front desk did not adequately address your concerns, ask to speak to a manager. Remember to document your conversations with each employee so there are no misunderstandings. This will give you a clear trail to follow if you need to escalate your complaint.
7. Taking the Matter Higher or to Social Media
If you don’t feel the staff satisfactorily addressed the issue, you have a couple of options. In extreme cases, you could call for the hotel's general manager or the airline's station manager. Ask them to revisit the solution if you don’t feel the outcome was fair.
This is where having neat and concise notes detailing the issue, who you’ve spoken to, and any agreements made can come in handy — not just for you but also by providing the manager with a tidy overview of the issue. When multiple people are involved, managers may not receive these details from hotel or airline staff.
The last resort (seriously, don't abuse this)
As a last resort, you can air your concerns on the company’s social media channels, such as X/Twitter and Facebook, detailing the specifics of your complaint. From experience, pushing issues into the public arena often gives the service provider added motivation to address the problem. This is particularly true when you are specific in your requests and have notes to back them up.
Strangely, some customer service centers seem to focus solely on social media. I've felt bad the couple of times I tweeted about how customer service ignored requests for help. However, customer service quickly got in touch, and the matter was immediately and fairly resolved. Apparently, that's the approach some companies take. Then again, they're often just as likely to respond to a DM as to a public tweet.
8. Get Travel Insurance
Travel insurance is a good way to get airline or hotel compensation beyond what the company offers. Of course, travel insurance doesn't cover every situation where you could need it, but it does cover many of the most common ones.
The above steps should resolve grievances where you didn't get what you expected or what was promised. However, larger matters that the company can't or is unwilling to resolve can sometimes be compensated through travel insurance.
Nowadays, some countries require travel insurance. But regardless, travel insurance is a good thing to have. It may not compensate for a bad hotel stay because the room had a weird odor or because you didn't like the receptionist, but it can be especially helpful for medical issues during your travels.
9. Receive Additional Compensation From a Credit Card Provider
It’s worth noting, particularly for airline issues such as canceled or delayed flights and baggage problems, that the travel insurance included with many credit cards could cover you for thousands of dollars. That's why it's important to consider the not-as-flashy under-the-hood benefits when you consider applying for a new card.
For example, cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Chase Sapphire Reserve® feature differing levels of trip and baggage insurance. These cards enable passengers to claim expenses when their flights are delayed or canceled, or their bags never arrive at their destination.
- Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
- $300 Annual Travel Credit as reimbursement for travel purchases charged to your card each account anniversary year.
- Earn 5x total points on flights and 10x total points on hotels and car rentals when you purchase travel through Chase Travel℠ immediately after the first $300 is spent on travel purchases annually. Earn 3x points on other travel and dining & 1 point per $1 spent on all other purchases
- Get 50% more value when you redeem your points for travel through Chase Travel℠. For example, 60,000 points are worth $900 toward travel.
- 1:1 point transfer to leading airline and hotel loyalty programs
- Access to 1,300+ airport lounges worldwide after an easy, one-time enrollment in Priority Pass™ Select and up to $120 application fee credit every four years for Global Entry, NEXUS, or TSA PreCheck®
- Count on Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance, Auto Rental Coverage, Lost Luggage Insurance and more.
- Member FDIC
- Rates & Fees
- 10X points on hotels and car rentals purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 10X points on Chase Dining (including prepaid reservations and prepaid takeout purchased through Chase)
- 5X points on airfare purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3X points on all other travel
- 3X points on dining at restaurants
- 1X points on all other purchases
Even if you pay for the travel with your card or pay the taxes and fees if you're using points/miles, the credit card benefits should cover you — but you'll want to confirm your coverage before you book. Check out our best credit cards for free travel insurance and best credit cards for baggage coverage. This coverage is in excess of (and separate from) the hotel compensation you may get for a bad hotel stay after speaking with customer service from the hotel brand.
Final Thoughts
Having a realistic idea of how negative situations can be rectified and proactively addressing issues when they arise can greatly impact your overall travel experience. It's not uncommon for things to go wrong if you spend enough time on the road or in the air. Learning how to ask for fair airline or hotel compensation is vital when things don’t go your way.
Be sure to follow up with the company's corporate office and provide feedback on how well (or how poorly) the hotel or airline staff handled the situation. Again, use your notes with full names, dates, and details. This will allow you to remember all the details well after the fact. Presenting details respectfully will help you move toward a solution much more efficiently.
Have any tips or tricks for getting fair compensation from a hotel or airline? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Chase Sapphire Reserve® (Rates & Fees)
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
To Whom it May Concern:
I don’t know where else to reach out. Please read about my recent trip to the Sheraton West at Wrigley. Mesa AZ
My Daughters wedding was in Mesa. I booked a block of rooms at the Sheraton west in Mesa Az.
Two rooms arrived on Tuesday March 28th. Check in is at three. We were told that rooms were not ready and to check back in gnirty minutes. After being told that they were so busy and it wasn’t their fault, we finally got into our rooms at 6 and 8 PM. Mind you, we had one Pregnant and one disabled. My room did not have air working. After three calls to FD, some finally showed up the next day. awe had to move rooms. We had a ton of things for the wedding and it was quite difficult, but we were happy to have air. We unloaded into our new room and discovered the AC didn’t work in it. So after many calls, we had to move again. We had to miss the wedding events to deal with this! No help no apologies nothing.My daughters wedding week was not off to a great start. Towels were always out!
Next day, I talked with bar/ restaurant about having 20 people for dinner. I wanted to make sure they could handle it. We were told yes, but in reality there was one person working, who acted as the bartender and server for the whole restaurant. You can only imagine how this went. The server is not to blame. She tried her hardest!!
Next day, I towels.
Security was no. Existent and we had some scary things happen.
One of our guests went up to their room to find a threatening note saying she was next.
Guests arriving late from Bars, took the stairs to their room. They were greated by an agitated man who we assume was homeless.
We told FD and nothing was done
Next day: pool day for the wedding block guests. Man at Bar started making threats to other patrons. The pool bartender asked FD to kick him out, but they said they wouldn’t. Said man, then came into pool and started causing issues with my guests. After being run into, aggressively splashed etc, we very nicely asked him to leave us alone. He got out of the pool making threats and coming at my party. Luckily we had some big guys that directed him out. He made terrostic threats saying he was going to kill rape the girls etc. since the FD did nothing, the bartender called the cops. The swat team came and you can read more on the police reports. My Daughters special week was ruined. The whole party had to give info t the police and obviously pool day was ruined.
I checked out the next day and had gift certificates for opening Bonvoy credit card. No k e knew how to use them, and I am still trying to get that fixed, but no one returns calls.
What was supposed to be a great time with our wedding guests turned into a shit show. It wasn’t only that but the staff’s attitude and rudeness just added fuel!!
I am sad, angry, to say the least. We are from Minnesota and this was a trip that people made to have fun! We feel cheated out of what should have been an awesome week.
I would appreciate it if you would reach out to me.
What do I need to do if daughter and I drank almost entire bucket of ice that had mold all in it at hotel and now we are both very sick? It’s halloween and my daughters favorite holiday will be missed over it.
I took the ice bucket to front desk and clerk just said sorry.
We both woke up sick and I’m not sure how to go about this … help?
First, I’d recommend documenting everything. The front desk agent might not be able to provide any compensation, so you may need to (politely) ask to speak to a manager. If that doesn’t resolve it and this hotel is part of a chain, reach out to customer service for the chain if they can help.
What should I get possibly and/or they should give me for, I did not like shower and wanted a bath instead because the motion sensor light kept switching off every 2 min and because of my vertigo I came very close to falling.. I ask front desk manager to switch rooms , 10pm: he wanted for us to be fast in switching rooms so he could clean ours.10:15: moving stuff to other room and notice lock on new room severely broke and still has shower…10:20: call front desk let them know about lock and head back to our original room…10:20 to11:00pm: sat waiting in our room food starting to get cold in freezer bag, said they would call back and Everytime I call they won’t Nswer.. 11:00: head to front desk, daughter call just before I make it there and says manager was just there and told her to leave both keys there and he would be getting us new keys for another room and once again said we would have to be fast cause he needs to clean this one…11:30: call down again to see what’s going on. A bell hop answers and has no idea what’s going on except he might to clean our old room nor does he know where manager is says he will call back..11:55: still nothin call again , a new front desk clerk and let’s me know everyone went home for the night and she the only one there and she had no idea what was going on and no one told her…. 12:15: had to stay in our room no keys that worked for outside door to get in. Food went bad cause I was so exhausted from all this not to mention all the stuff I had to do while there, I forgot to put back in fridge…..bags still packed just waiting for a call back to switch room
Lacey – that’s a pretty strange situation. I’m not sure what hotel brand it was, but for me personally I would expect to not pay for that night of my stay. The hotel staff ruined that particular day, so I wouldn’t want to pay for it. Others may feel differently.
Social media can be very vocal in escalating your issue and also I believe you should have mentioned EU compensation regulations that in my view should become a template for other countries to implement.
If you have a legitimate issue, you should bring it up. Don’t complain just to get a few freebies. Usually, the hotel manager can help, but sometimes you get nowhere. Don’t sweat the small things!!
When in doubt ^^ best advice for just about every situation in life!
What kind of a compensation can you get for a non smoking room that smells of cigarettes? The only thing they did when we complained was to open the windows to air out the room. There was still a smell to the room.
If you were not satisfied, you should reach out to the Hotel GM or the loyalty program’s customer service department. As for what should you get? Each case is unique.
I am always on top of reporting bad service and usually do get made whole for bad service. Most recent issue, a charge dropping off a rental car not gven to me in my reservation confirmation. I was told it was a charge for declining a charge. (Really, with a straight face.) They said if you decline to be charged for insurance because your credit card already provides it, you are charged! I’m awaiting the reply now and expect they will make it right. If not, I have the address to every consumer agency in the country. 🙂
Good article, hits many important points when seeking compensation for incidents happened during travel.
These suggestions are especially valid if the other part is honest and wish to solve a problem.
Sometimes, the counterpart simply refuse to give compensation and the only solution is to go to court.
I think a good solution is to oblige the companies which act in bad faith to indemnify the double or more, otherwise it is cheaper to refuse the reimbursement, not everyone has the knowledge and the time to go to justice.
Great article. Useful information. Delayed flights in Europe can get good compensation. youAlways try to keep the level head even when displeased with service. Save the freak out for when it is really warranted.
Certain companies are much easier to deal with than others. For some companies Twitter is the best way to get through to someone.
This is true in all areas of life. When you are nice, people respond in kind, when you come out “guns blazing”, people also respond in kind.
This isn’t to say that one should never use a “guns blazing” approach, but when trying to get compensation from a company, always try a kind approach 1st.
So many people complain today and are rude. I completely understand for legit reasons but I find that Americans do complain a lot. Have you seen posts on social media about road rage,calling 911 because a burger isn’t made fast enough?! That all makes me really think about what I complain about anything and how I treat people.
I find that most people do not know how to complain properly or when, so this is awesome to kind of give a guidance on that! Thank you!
Try getting compensation from AA and United
If it is a problem with an airline, making a complaint to the dept of transportation can get a change in response in my experience.
It’s easier if it’s an American based company. I’ve had little luck with foreign companies. They seem to think Americans complain just to complain.
Sometimes phone calls work too (although they take longer and don’t provide the satisfaction of publicly shaming companies). Airports in particular have some miserable employees lately, but there are also some great ones who really try hard to accommodate passengers.
Good article… I can never get fair compensation this should help
I’ve found usually Twitter gets an extremely fast response time from larger companies if staff members aren’t cooperating
Very good advice, especially about patience and being polite. I have seen too many people who thought they were overly entitled treating employees as if they were slaves. Things happen and are usually resolved with a bit of patience.
I tried Twitter it worked for me.
Twitter can be a good avenue depending on the company.