> ..., and Lufthansa from Germany

EU has much more strict rules. The airline must not only refund you, but compensate you too if the flight was cancelled less than 14 days before departure and the cancellation wasn't due to extraordinary circumstances. I.e. heavy rain and storm or a volcano eruption the airline could not have done anything to complete the flight in spite of. Stuff like technical problems or a strike [1] is generally 100% on the airline.

See https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right... for the details.

[1] Strikes internal to the airline, i.e. by airline staff. Strikes external to the airline may in some cases count as extraordinary circumstances.

I had to fight with Lufthansa for a year to get reimbursed for hotels & new tickets.

They closed all service desks after flight cancellation (no strike, just their crew planning issues) and sign told us to find own flights and hotels.

Few months later I went to this service desk again in Frankfurt, their response was "Go get a lawyer, we wont help with old cases"

Thankfully soep-online.de helped to get all money reimbursed but it took 13 months.

The big problem with the EU regulations is the lack of consequences when airlines don't follow them. They can just refuse or drag their feet and the worst thing that can happen is a court ordering them to follow the rules they should have followed in the first place. Some rules about treble compensation (or a big compensation if one wasn't due in the first place) if they haven't refunded/paid compensation within, say, 60 days from first contacted would probably help a lot with cutting through the bullshit.

What about delayed flights? My international Lufthansa flight arrived late enough to make me miss my next flight (Air Canada - who then compensated me with a $300 voucher and meal coupon).