Lufthansa flight delay compensation - how long does it take?

Back in June we missed our connecting flight due to a delay (both Luftansa flights). We had to stay overnight in Frankfurt. My husband put in a claim. We heard back from them pretty quickly. The first email was in English, they asked for our bank info to transfer the money. He sent our credit card info, not feeling comfortable with the bank codes. In fact, we weren’t sure if it was a phishing email. We then received an email in German. It said they had refunded the money to our travel agent who had purchased the tickets. Well, he did not receive any transfer. He emailed them and we are still waiting.

I had a delayed flight in from Nairobi to Frankfurt in September, 2022 which caused me to miss my connecting flight to Denver. After numerous emails and several detailed complaint letters I finally received compensation at the beginning of June 2023.

My suggestion is to not give up and carefully document your email/paper trail. After many emails I sent a complaint letter including the printed emails to Lufthansa US customer service office in New York. Several months later I finally got somewhere when I sent a strongly worded letter to the Lufthansa Customer Relations department in Frankfurt, Germany which included the info I sent to the New York office. (I found all these addresses on the internet.) FYI, I got nowhere by calling - it was just a waste of time.

So don't give up - you may just need to be patient and really persistent. (For a while I was sending an email every 1-2 weeks.)

Hope that helps.
Elizabeth

Thank you for responding!

Marie, we just received an email from Lufthansa this morning about our compensation. It looks like we will have to give them our banking info to receive it though. Wish us luck. I’ll let you know what happens.

My husband thought the email might have been phishing again so he called Lufthansa. He didn’t get through last week but yesterday morning (Monday) he was able to talk to someone. She said they are going very slow but are working in it. Hubby told them he didn’t want to give info in an email and they responded they had all needed info on file. He called the customer service number in their website. We shall wait and see…..

HI Barbara,

Wondering how it turned out? I received the Lufthansa email today, offering us a payment (no amount specified) and, like you, requesting our bank info. I hesitate to provide that to someone in an email, too.

Any update you want to share? Making this a public response since there may be others waiting to hear from LH.

Thank you!