So the flight was scheduled for 12:00. They kept announcing that it was delayed to 1:00, 2:00, and then at 2:55 they stopped announcing new delays. The flight ended up boarding at 3:30, but because they didn’t announce the delay every customer service rep said that I wasn’t entitled to compensation.

We have something similar in Canada. One of the budget airlines screwed us out of it by not declaring the delays past 2 hours 55 minutes. The flight ended up being delayed by 4 hours, but when I went for my refund they pulled out the declared delay.