Which Flight Compensation Company Pays Out Fastest? What Thirteen Companies Promise in Writing, and What They Charge for Speed

Only two flight compensation companies put a payout time in writing on their own websites, read on 14 October 2026: MYFLYRIGHT, whose "Immediate Payout" option pays "within 24 hours after receiving all relevant documents" for 35% plus VAT, and Refund Pilot, whose offer cards say "Payout in 1 to 3 days" for 25 to 29%. Both pay you from their own money before the airline has paid, which is why they cost more than waiting. For an ordinary claim, where you are paid after the airline pays, the only published figures are AirAdvisor's "usually up to six weeks", MYFLYRIGHT's four to ten weeks, ClaimFlights' "often less than three months" out of court, and Bott and Co's average of about 72 days. AirHelp, Flightright, Skycop, Compensair and SkyRefund, the most-used names, publish no time at all. This page gives no score. Each company is shown with what it says, where it says it and the date it was read.

Who is on this page, and what "fast" means

A company is on this page if its own website publishes a payout time: a time from the airline paying to you receiving the money, a typical total length of a claim, or an instant payout product with a stated delay. Thirteen of the 18 companies we track are below; the five largest by Trustpilot count are shown even where they state nothing, marked "Not stated on their website", because people ask about them by name. Click2Refund, Refundor, refund.me and GIVT state nothing and are not among the largest; Colibra's and FairPlane's sites could not be read.

Three different clocks hide behind the word "fast". The first is how long the airline takes to pay, which no claims company controls and which runs from under two months to over nine for the same claim, by airline. The second is how long the company takes to pass the money on once it has it: a number only four companies publish. The third is the instant payout, where the company pays you now from its own funds and pursues the airline itself; both companies offering it describe it as a separately priced option, and neither page we read says whether the claim is sold or assigned to them.

The two companies that pay before the airline does

The rest: what they say about timing, one card each

Alphabetical. These companies pay you after the airline pays them. Four give a number for how quickly they pass the money on; the others do not.

Where the time really goes: the airline

No law sets a deadline for an airline to pay an EC261 or UK261 claim, so the airline, not the claims company, decides most of the wait. The EU's own guidance says to complain to the airline first and escalate to the national enforcement body if there is no reply within two months; that body's opinion is not binding, and court follows national time limits. The UK CAA's route is the same: airline, then an approved dispute scheme if the airline is in one, then the small claims court. The one recent set of figures on how long airlines take comes from Bott and Co, a claims firm, from its own 2025 cases, with no method or sample size published: Jet2 paid in an average of 55 days and Lufthansa in 274. Treat it as one firm's experience, not a statistic. Deadlines for your own claim are on flight compensation claim deadlines; what to do when an airline says no is on its own page.

Three ways to choose

1. Do you need the money this week? Then only MYFLYRIGHT's Immediate Payout (within 24 hours of all documents, 35% plus VAT) and Refund Pilot (1 to 3 days, 25 to 29%) say so in writing. Refund Pilot is for EU-regulation flights only; MYFLYRIGHT's pages describe only the EU regulation too, so neither is a stated option for a UK261-only flight, where the UK261 page applies.

2. If you can wait, which company binds itself to a number? Four do, for the step they control: Bott and Co pays within 14 days of receiving the money; EUclaim, Flight-Delayed and AirAdvisor within 30 days. AirHelp, Flightright, Skycop, SkyRefund, Compensair, ClaimFlights and Refundmore publish no such deadline.

3. Is speed worth the fee? On a €600 award, MYFLYRIGHT's own rates put the instant option at about €250 in charges with German VAT, against about €180 for waiting 4 to 10 weeks. The faster route costs roughly €70 more to be paid two months sooner. Whether that is worth it depends on the airline: on Bott and Co's 2025 figures, waiting for Jet2 meant about eight weeks, waiting for Lufthansa about nine months. Claiming yourself costs nothing and, with a prompt airline, may be no slower.

Richard Jasinski · Uncompromised Travel · written from Valencia · first published 15 October 2026 · updated 15 October 2026