How Secure Is Submitting a Flight Claim Online?

Flight claim online security is a reasonable concern. Submitting a claim requires sharing personally identifiable information: your full name, flight number, travel date, booking confirmation number, and sometimes the last four digits of the payment card used to buy the ticket. This is the same data category as a passport application or a mortgage document. Passengers are right to ask what happens to it. The short answer: a legitimate claims service needs this data only to file the regulatory complaint and prove your identity to the airline. It should not need your full card number, password, or frequent flyer login credentials. Any service that asks for those should be treated as a red flag.

A legitimate claims service needs: name, flight details, booking reference, and a payment method for fee collection. It does not need your passport, airline account password, or full credit card number.

To file a regulatory complaint and claim compensation, a claims service needs: (1) passenger name as it appears on the booking, (2) flight number and date, (3) booking confirmation number to verify the ticket, (4) departure and arrival airports, (5) description of the disruption (delay length, cancellation, denied boarding), (6) contact email for correspondence, and (7) a payment method to collect its fee when the claim succeeds. That is the complete list for a DOT or EU261 claim. Some NEB filings require a copy of the booking confirmation or boarding pass as supporting documentation. The service does not need your airline account credentials, frequent flyer number, or full payment card number. See is TravelStacks legit: how we work for a full breakdown of the TravelStacks data model.

TravelStacks collects the minimum data set required to file and pursue a claim. Name, flight details, and booking reference are submitted to the DOT, NEB, or CAA as required by each regulator's complaint form. Contact email is used for claim status updates and settlement notifications. Payment details are collected at settlement, not at submission. TravelStacks does not store full card numbers. Payment is processed through Stripe, which handles all card data on Stripe's infrastructure. TravelStacks receives only a Stripe payment token and the last four digits of the card. Booking confirmation data is retained for the duration of the claim and for a standard post-resolution period as required by our terms of service, then deleted. See flight compensation scams: how to spot and stay safe for a comparison of how fraudulent services handle data.

TravelStacks does not store your card number. Stripe handles all payment data on its PCI-DSS Level 1 certified infrastructure. We receive a token, not card details.

Payment data is the highest-sensitivity element of a flight claim submission. TravelStacks uses Stripe for all payment processing. Stripe is a PCI DSS Level 1 service provider, the highest certification tier in the payment card industry. When you enter payment details on the TravelStacks checkout, the card number is encrypted and transmitted directly to Stripe's servers. TravelStacks never sees the full card number. The TravelStacks database holds a Stripe customer ID and a payment method token. If the TravelStacks database were ever compromised, card numbers would not be in it. This architecture is standard among legitimate e-commerce and subscription services. It is one of the most straightforward security checks you can apply to a claims service: ask how they handle payment. If they store cards themselves rather than using a PCI-DSS certified processor, that is a disqualifying red flag.

Booking confirmation data (flight number, date, booking reference) is stored in the TravelStacks database for the duration of the active claim and for a retention period after resolution, as specified in the privacy policy. The purpose of post-resolution retention is to handle any re-openings, airline appeals, or NEB follow-up requests that may arrive after the initial settlement. After the retention period expires, booking data is deleted. Passenger contact data (email, name) is retained for longer to maintain account access and claim history, but passengers can request deletion at any time under GDPR or CCPA depending on their jurisdiction. Transmission of data to the DOT or NEB is done over encrypted channels (HTTPS) and in the format required by each regulator's complaint system.

You can request deletion of your data at any time. Under GDPR (EU/UK) or CCPA (California), you have the right to access and delete your personal data held by any service.

When TravelStacks files a DOT complaint, the complaint form requires: passenger name, contact information, flight details, and a description of the disruption. This information is shared with the DOT and the airline as part of the complaint process. This is a legal requirement: regulators cannot investigate a complaint without knowing who filed it and what happened. When filing with an EU NEB, the same information is shared with the NEB and forwarded to the airline. The DOT Air Travel Consumer Report publishes aggregate statistics; individual complaint details are not published. NEB complaint data is generally not published at the individual level. No payment information is ever shared with regulators or airlines.

Warning signs that a flight claims service has inadequate security or is operating fraudulently: (1) asking for your airline account username and password (legitimate services never need this), (2) requesting a full passport scan when a booking reference suffices, (3) no HTTPS on the submission form (any site collecting personal data without HTTPS is a security failure), (4) no named company, physical address, or registered business in the terms of service, (5) no mention of how payment is processed (legitimate services name their payment processor), (6) fee demanded upfront before the claim is filed (EU261 and UK261 claims services on contingency collect only on success), (7) no privacy policy or data retention policy linked from the submission form. See flight compensation scams: how to spot and stay safe for a full list.

Legitimate EU261 and UK261 services do not charge upfront fees. Any service that demands payment before filing is not operating on the standard contingency model.

Before submitting booking data to any flight claims service: (1) check that the URL uses HTTPS and the domain matches the service name, (2) look up the company name in the business registry of its stated home country (UK: Companies House; US: state secretary of state; EU: national commercial register), (3) verify the payment processor is named and is a recognised PCI-DSS certified service (Stripe, Braintree, Adyen, etc.), (4) read the privacy policy and confirm a data deletion mechanism exists, (5) search the company name plus the word refund or complaint to check for patterns of consumer fraud. TravelStacks is registered in California (Travel Stacks LLC) and uses Stripe. Both facts are verifiable. Start your claim at /claim or check /airlines/rankings to see how your airline handles claims before filing.