They sold your seat twice.

Denied boarding against your will is the clearest claim in aviation — and the one most often settled at the gate for far less than it is worth.

Read this first

Never volunteer without knowing the number

Airlines ask for volunteers first, and a volunteer who accepts a voucher has usually agreed to a settlement worth far less than the statutory amount — and given up the claim. If you are asked to give up your seat, ask what you are entitled to as an involuntary denial before accepting anything. If you are denied boarding against your will, ask for the reason in writing at the gate.

What you are owed

Compensation, with no three-hour wait required

Unlike a delay, denied boarding attracts compensation immediately where EC261/UK261 applies — you do not need to arrive late to claim. In the United States, involuntary denied boarding on an oversold flight carries defined compensation calculated as a multiple of your one-way fare and subject to a cap, with the amount depending on how late the airline gets you there.

A refund or re-routing as well

The compensation is separate from getting you where you were going, or getting your money back. Both are owed.

Care while you wait for the next flight

Meals, communication, and accommodation if it runs overnight.

How they will refuse, and what answers it

“You volunteered.”

Only if you knowingly accepted a settlement. If you were told there was no choice, that is not volunteering — say so and describe exactly what you were told.

“You were late to the gate.”

Denied boarding compensation applies when you presented on time with a valid booking. If you were there before the stated closing time, state it precisely, with any evidence of when you arrived.

“The aircraft was changed to a smaller one.”

In the EU and UK this is still denied boarding — an operational downgauge is the airline's own decision, not an extraordinary circumstance. In the US it is the opposite: a substitution of smaller equipment for operational or safety reasons is a defined exception to denied-boarding compensation, so a US claim has to rest on the refund and your costs instead.

Gather this before you write

□Your booking and check-in confirmation, showing you held a valid reservation
□What time you presented at the gate, and anything proving it
□The reason given for the denial, in writing if you can get it there and then
□Anything you were offered, and whether you accepted it
□The time you eventually reached your destination

Now make them answer.

Tell us what happened in your own words. We write the claim, set the deadlines, and email each escalation on the day it is due — and we will not demand money the rules do not owe, because a claim that overreaches gets a one-line refusal.