FlightRepay

ANSWER · UK 261 AND EC 261

I volunteered to give up my seat. Can I still claim compensation?

Generally no. Art. 4(1) treats volunteering as a negotiated exchange: you surrender the reservation for benefits agreed with the carrier, and the Art. 7 sum of €250, €400 or €600 attaches to boarding denied against your will under Art. 4(2). What survives is the Art. 8 choice between a refund and re-routing, which the airline owes volunteers as well.

REVIEWED AGAINST RULE SET V6 AND THE CITED PRIMARY SOURCES · UPDATED 7 AUGUST 2026

What a volunteer keeps

Art. 4(1) is explicit that volunteers receive the agreed benefits in addition to the assistance in Art. 8. So the choice between reimbursement of the ticket and re-routing to the final destination remains, whatever was agreed at the desk.

Comparing an offer with the statutory figure

WHAT INVOLUNTARY DENIAL WOULD HAVE PAID
DISTANCE BANDEC 261UK 261
Up to 1,500 km€250£220
1,500 to 3,500 km€400£350
Over 3,500 km€600£520
Bands and amounts read from rule set v5, the same data the free check evaluates. EC 261 figures are set by Art. 7(1); the sterling figures were substituted by SI 2019/278 for flights covered by the retained regulation.

Where the line gets blurred in practice

Gate announcements often present a single option, and a passenger who accepts a voucher under the impression that the alternative was no seat at all has a factual dispute about whether they volunteered.

The regulation gives no test for that, so it turns on the evidence: what was said, what was signed, and whether a call for volunteers was actually made before boarding was refused.

SOURCES

  1. Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Art. 4(1) · EUR-Lex · checked 7 August 2026
  2. Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Art. 8 · EUR-Lex · checked 7 August 2026
  3. Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Art. 7 · EUR-Lex · checked 7 August 2026

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