How it works
Six questions, asked in order.
- Stages
- 6
- Claim categories
- 13
- Where it runs
- Your browser
- What is stored
- Nothing
01/The pipeline
One answer, six stages.
Every registered regime is asked first whether it applies, before it is asked what it pays. Territorial reach, temporal reach and subject-matter reach are three separate tests, and a regime that fails any of them stops here with a verdict of out-of-scope.
- Verdict if it fails here
- out-of-scope
- Regimes still standing
- carried forward
The mistake this prevents
Collapsing out-of-scope into ineligible. One means the regime never reached you; the other means it did and the facts defeat you. Only the second tells you what would have made it a yes.
The trigger conditions, one at a time, each recorded with what was looked at and the article it was read from. A check that cannot be answered from what you have entered is recorded as inconclusive and registers the question that would settle it — it is never quietly assumed against you.
- Verdict
- eligible · ineligible
- A decisive gap gives
- needs-more-info
The mistake this prevents
Evaluating an incomplete input and returning a confident “not eligible”. A missing decisive fact downgrades the verdict automatically; the builder will not let a rule skip it.
The award is assembled from named components, and the headline figure must equal their sum — the builder rejects an evaluation where it does not. Money is an integer count of minor units with an ISO 4217 code, never a float and never converted: a statutory EUR figure and a statutory USD figure are two entitlements, and adding them through a spot rate misstates both.
- Award
- min · max · exact
- Currency
- statutory, unconverted
Notice periods, filing windows and limitation dates are computed per regime from the evaluation date you supplied, on calendar-date arithmetic rather than instant arithmetic — modelling “within 21 days” as 21 × 86 400 seconds moves the deadline by a day twice a year. An expired fatal deadline downgrades the verdict rather than sitting quietly next to it.
- Most urgent live deadline
- surfaced first
- Verdict if a fatal clock has run
- time-barred
A first refusal is not the end of a claim, it is the middle of one — so each regime records the defences a counterparty actually raises against it, with the authority that answers each. This is what the rebuttal letter argues from, and it is the part of the claim that most people abandon at.
- Anticipated defences
- with the answer
- Rebuttal template
- offered
The named body for your country — the regulator, the ombudsman, the ADR scheme, the small-claims court — with what it costs, roughly how long it takes, and whether its decision binds the other side. A route that is free and non-binding and a route that costs a filing fee and is binding are different decisions, and you should be making them with the numbers in front of you.
- Ordered route
- direct → ADR → court
- Cost and binding effect
- stated
A rule module is a pure function: everything ambient — today’s date, airport distances, carrier nationality — arrives as an argument rather than being read from the clock or the network. The same claim on the same date therefore evaluates identically every time, which is what makes the trace an audit record rather than a snapshot of one lucky run, and what lets a draft saved in March be re-rendered in September exactly as you first saw it.
One module throwing does not take down the evaluation. It is captured and the remaining jurisdictions still return, because a single malformed long-tail regime must never cost somebody their EU261 claim.
02/Verdicts
Five answers, not two.
- eligible
- This regime applies and provides for a payment or remedy.
- Eligible
- needs-more-info
- Scope is satisfied. One decisive fact is still missing.
- One more answer needed
- time-barred
- You would have qualified, but every time limit that applies has run out.
- Time-barred
- ineligible
- This regime covers your situation, but the facts as entered defeat the claim.
- Not eligible
- out-of-scope
- This regime never reaches these facts — its territorial or temporal scope stops short.
- Out of scope
The distinction that does the most work is out-of-scope against ineligible. The first means the regime’s reach stops short of you and nothing you could have done differently would change that. The second means it does cover you and the facts as entered defeat the claim — which tells you which fact to go and check.
One more answer needed exists because the alternative is the worst thing this engine could do: evaluate an incomplete input and confidently return a no. A decisive missing fact downgrades an otherwise eligible verdict automatically, and the question that would settle it is put in front of you.
03/Overlap
Reconciled, never summed.
More than one regime frequently reaches the same facts. A Paris–New York delay is covered by EU261, which pays a fixed sum, and by the Montreal Convention, which pays proven consequential loss. They are not alternatives and they are not additive. Telling you “€600 plus $2,100” would be wrong; telling you “€600” would leave money on the table.
So each pair of regimes carries a recorded relationship, union-find collapses a three-way overlap into a single group rather than three inconsistent pairwise comparisons, and the result is reported twice over.
- Claim both, in full.
- The regimes address different losses and do not interfere. This is also the default for any pair the table does not know about — safe, because the reconciliation machinery is only ever used to reduce a headline figure, never to inflate one.
- cumulative
- The larger absorbs the smaller.
- EU261 Art. 12(1) provides that compensation granted under the Regulation may be deducted from further damages. A Paris–New York delay engages both EU261 and the Montreal Convention; the realistic total is the greater of the two plus any head of loss that does not overlap.
- set-off
- Pick one.
- Pursuing both is an abuse of process and a court will strike it out.
- exclusive
- Exhaust one, then the other.
- A statutory complaints procedure that must be completed before a regulator or a court will look at the claim.
- sequential
Best total
What is realistically recoverable. Overlapping groups contribute only their strongest member. This is the figure the letter argues for.
Theoretical maximum
The naive arithmetic sum, shown as an upper bound and labelled as one. It is there so you can see what was set off against what, not so anyone can quote it.
Mixed currencies are reported separately rather than converted. A statutory euro figure and a statutory dollar figure are two distinct entitlements, and running them through a spot rate misstates both.
04/Confidence
How sure it is, published.
- high
- The figure and its trigger read directly off primary legislation or a regulator page, with a citation carrying a URL you can open.
- Read off primary law
- medium
- Derived, indexed, or taken from a regulator FAQ rather than the instrument itself.
- Derived or secondary source
- low
- Advocacy sources, law-firm summaries, press, or a regime currently in flux. Excluded from results unless you ask for them, and always carrying a warning.
- Unverified — check before relying on it
Every rule carries the date it was last reviewed, and the validator warns once that date passes a year. Law rots on a schedule: the FTC’s click-to-cancel rule was vacated days before it took effect, and the Montreal Convention’s baggage limit moved in December 2024. A figure hardcoded without an effective date and a review date becomes a lie with a start time.
05/Limits
What it will not do.
It will not act as your agent.
There is no send endpoint, no email relay and no integration that posts to an airline’s web form. Preparing and sending a demand on somebody else’s behalf has been held in several jurisdictions to be the practice of law. You send it, in your own name, which is what keeps the tool lawful everywhere rather than in some places.It will not tell you what to do.
It states what the law provides for, with the article it read that from. Applying it to your situation and deciding whether to act is yours, and where that decision is worth real money it is worth a lawyer.It will not promise you an outcome.
A figure is what a regime provides for on the facts as entered — not a prediction that you will be paid it. The conformance suite greps every rule module’s user-facing prose for outcome-promising language and fails the build on a match, so this is enforced rather than remembered.It will not take a percentage.
Not a contingency fee, not a success fee, not a finder’s fee on unclaimed property. Taking one would change what this is — legally, not just rhetorically.It will not guess to look complete.
Where a regime cannot be verified from a primary source, the entry says the regulator, the route and that we could not confirm the amount. An honest gap is worth more than a plausible number, because a plausible number sends someone into a fight they lose having relied on us.