A claim is worth €250, €400 or €600 under EU261 — £220, £350 or £520 under UK261 — and an agency keeps a share of it, commonly a quarter to a third. What the agency does is send one letter and, if the airline refuses, file with a free regulator. Both steps are yours to take.
What the money buys
Every route an agency uses is open to you at no cost. The letter goes to the airline’s own claim form. The escalation goes to a national enforcement body or, in the UK, to an approved ADR scheme whose decision binds the airline once you accept it. Neither charges the passenger. The agency’s fee pays for the administration and for the risk it takes on cases it loses, not for access to anything you are shut out of.
We do not publish a fee percentage here. Agencies set their own terms, several charge more where a lawyer or a court gets involved, and some add VAT or an admin charge on top. On 6 September 2026 we could not open the published fee pages of the two largest operators to quote them accurately, so we will not put a number on it. Read the agency’s own terms before you sign, and look specifically for the fee on a court case, the treatment of separately claimed expenses, and whether the quoted rate includes tax. For a fee-by-fee breakdown against one specific agency, see AirHelp vs DIY: the honest math.
What to do yourself, in order
- Check what the flight is worth in the amounts table — five minutes with a boarding pass.
- Send the delay or cancellation letter through the airline’s claim form and keep proof.
- Give it around 14 days, then one chaser with a date on it.
- If refused or ignored, escalate to the regulator or ADR scheme. Attach the same file you already built.
- Keep small claims in reserve for a solvent airline that ignores a binding decision.
When doing it yourself is the obvious call
The facts are not in dispute: the flight arrived three or more hours late, or was cancelled inside 14 days, or you were bumped. Nobody is seriously arguing about the cause. You have the boarding passes and the airline’s own email. That describes most claims, and in those cases the letter and the free escalation are the whole job.
Trying it yourself first costs you nothing. Send your own letter and wait a fortnight. If the airline pays, you keep the full amount. If it refuses, you can still escalate for free, or hand the file to an agency then — with the refusal already in writing, which is what the agency would have had to obtain anyway. There is no step you lose by starting on your own.
When paying an agency makes sense
Four situations, honestly. The airline disputes the facts and the case is heading for court in a country whose procedure you do not know. The claim is high value or covers a whole family and the cross-border administration would take you days. The airline has ignored a binding decision and enforcement is the next step. Or you simply will not chase it otherwise — a share of something beats all of nothing, and an unfiled claim is worth zero.
Do airlines treat agency claims differently?
Some do, and it can cut either way. A few carriers state that they will only deal with the passenger directly or will not pay a third party’s bank details, which can slow a claim rather than speed it up. Others process agency claims in bulk without argument. Check the airline’s own passenger-rights page before you sign anything, because the answer is carrier-specific and it changes.
Does the fee come out of expenses too?
Ask before you sign. Compensation under Article 7 and reimbursement of meals, hotel and transport are separate claims, and some agreements take a percentage of everything recovered rather than of the fixed sum alone. The out-of-pocket half is usually the easiest part to claim yourself, so it is worth carving out. If travel insurance is also in the picture, how it interacts with an EU261 claim is worth reading before an agency or an insurer takes a cut of the same money twice.
Who keeps the money if my employer paid for the ticket?
The passenger who flew, not the payer, unless your travel policy says otherwise. Work out who is entitled to the compensation on a business trip before you claim in your own name or hand the file to an agency.
Is a no-win-no-fee agreement really no risk?
The fee is contingent, but read what happens if the airline pays you directly after you signed, if you settle without telling the agency, or if the case goes to court. Those clauses are where the surprises live. Nothing on this site is legal advice; if a contract term worries you, get it looked at before you sign rather than after.