refund.me releases flight compensation app to travel agents via Sabre Red App Centre

NEW YORK and LONDON, Aug. 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- refund.me, the international passenger rights specialist that helps flyers claim their right to compensation for flight delays, cancellations, missed connections and overbooking, has released a new app for travel agents using the Sabre system. The app, which is available to travel agents via the Sabre Red App Centre, will automatically monitor thousands of bookings and detect delays and cancellations eligible for compensations of up to $800^[1] according to EU law. This EU law applies to all flights outbound from Europe, regardless of destination. It also covers flights from the US to Europe if operated by an EU carrier.

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The app, named the Top Sabre Red Appy for its usefulness for passengers and travel agents while under development in April 2013, will ensure that more passengers can claim compensation from airlines under EU Regulation EC 261/2004. This law guarantees compensations of €250, €300, €400 or €600 ($340, $400, $540 and $815) depending on the delay and distance travelled. But currently just 2% of eligible passengers successfully claim their right to compensation.

refund.me, which estimates that on average in the last decade more than $500 million a year were left unclaimed, hopes this app will encourage passengers to claim their right to compensation. Last year, this number dipped to $400 million, indicating encouraging parallel trends: a rise in passenger rights awareness and improved airline service.

Specifically developed for the Sabre Red App Workspace, the refund.me Red App will allow more than 220,000 Sabre-connected travel agents worldwide to opt in for the free monitoring system. This will exponentially grow passenger rights application.

Eve Buechner, Founder and CEO of refund.me, said: "This app is designed to ensure passengers are given the opportunity to claim their compensation. The straightforward monitoring and alert system we are offering travel agents will go a long way to increasing awareness of passenger rights. It is the first step in simplifying what is often an unnecessarily difficult process."

This marks a turning point in the application of air passenger rights, as the app will automatically alert agents when a flight they have booked becomes eligible for compensation. This information can then be passed on to passengers, who can in turn claim their compensation.

Thanks to its leading technology, refund.me has the ability to monitor and generate claims for thousands of flights a day. Its innovative technology and cloud-based structure allow refund.me to offer an industry-best, "no-win, no-fee" commission rate of 15%. Since its birth in 2012, it has recorded a 94% success rate.

The Sabre Red App Centre is the world's first B2B app store for the travel industry. Since its launch in 2012, Travel agents in 112 countries have downloaded more than 500,000 apps, and Sabre expects that number to reach nearly one million app downloads by the end of the year.                                                                                                                                                                                                       

About refund.me 
refund.me is an international service provider that helps passengers enforce their claims to compensation for flight delays, cancellations and missed connections quickly and easily. Thanks to its specially developed, high-precision Advanced Business Logic System (ABL) system, claims can be submitted through the website or the free mobile app. refund.me can quickly enforce claims of up to $800 according to EU Regulation 261/2004.

refund.me operates on a sector-low "no-win, no-fee" commission of 15% (plus VAT).

This start-up created in August 2012 has made it its mission to make passenger rights worldwide transparent and attainable. refund.me is processing claims for thousands of customers from more than 110 countries and against more than 250 airlines. refund.me's operational headquarters are based in Potsdam, Germany; its corporate headquarters are located in Palo Alto, California.

^[1] According to current exchange rate for €600

SOURCE refund.me