@flowsion you could always set up a Gmail inbox that forwards on its own to another throwaway account. That way you're safe and you also have a copy in your primary inbox for your own records.

@flowsion @shoshinzen or why don't they just give you an email address you can forward to? seems silly to require inbox access when they could provide rules for users who don't just let random startups read their email

@flowsion @benguild sounds like they're trying to minimize the data storage they are paying for by simply accessing yours

@flowsion @benguild @shoshinzen hey guys, let me clear up why we ask for inbox access and what we do with that access. We used to allow users to manually file claims without requiring inbox access, and it was a huge headache on both sides. On the users side, they'd have to sift through their inbox until they found the correct confirmation email, and then forward it to a specific address. Then, since we file most claims with the users email, they'd have to forward us the airlines response(s). Overall, a huge waste of time. On our end, in addition to constantly having to nag our users to send us the correct documents, users would often file claims for flights that weren't actually delayed or cancelled. This also caused wrong expectations on both sides and wasted time. Getting inbox access is the quickest way around all of this, which is why we made it mandatory. So what do we do once we get inbox access? First, we only pull down emails with specific meta data that lets us serve our users. For example, we look for things from "American Airlines" or "Expedia" etc. Once we find a relevant sender we pull down the email in full to see if it contains a flight confirmation email (we don't pull down any other emails from an inbox). If the email contains flight data, we parse it and then use the data to check and see if it's delayed or cancelled. We also look for responses from the airline(s) once claims have been filed, and parse those out too. That's how we use the inbox, it's the most respectful we can be of users' privacy while also providing them with a seamless experience. We care deeply about our users privacy and take all necessary precautions to protect it.

@faisal_hassanx more like a focus. We had always handled airline claims and it was our single biggest category - this allowed us to focus on doing just one thing, and doing it great.

@rueter it's an average of $600/year per inbox - most users just book for themselves but sometimes that includes other travelers in their inbox. See above for a more detailed description of how it works.

@brennenlb thanks for the kind words, and please let me know your experience with the product!

@amaurymartiny As far as I can tell, they need access to your GMail and they claim to then do it automatically - e.g. they see the flights they book, and then check to see if they were delayed.

@amaurymartiny @cenk AirHelp can only help when your flight begins in Europe or when you're flying on an EU carrier. They don't help with US domestic flights (unless you were involuntarily denied compensation, which happens less than 1/2 of 1% of the time), and can't help with you're flying out of the US on non-EU carriers. I think we also make the process a bit more seamless.

Thanks for the kind comments, Matt

@gokonrad we handle all US carriers, Canadian carriers, and EU carriers!

@asatwork yes!

@findabhilash unfortunately in our experience the Indian airlines simply don't have a culture of customer service and it's a waste of our users' time to try and get compensation from them, quite bluntly they simply don't care very much. If you are flying a US or EU-carrier out of or to India we can help.

@schneider Thanks for the response Michael, I have signed up and set automatic alerts. I look forward to using Service in the future.

@_erez see above for a detailed explanation of why we made inbox access mandatory!