Many large retailers will refund it to the card used to purchase even if you don't have the receipt as a loss-prevention tactic. I used to work at banana republic and we would do it all the time. No receipt? Fine, we'll look it up. Swipe the CC and locate the digital record of the transaction.

The reason is that for a high volume retailer, customers will (quite regularly, as in at least once a day) bring in merchandise that was stolen and try and return it for cash. They'll claim they lost the receipt. Oh, okay, do you have the card it was purchased with? No? Then all you can get is a gift card (or exchange credit) for the most recent, marked-down price of the item. Savvy criminals are fine with that because they can take a $100 gift card and sell it for $50 cash, which is still a profit for them.

The bottom line is that if merchants allowed refunds to be transfered to ANY credit card, it would open a HUGE window for thieves and criminals and they would take it in a heartbeat. It's sad, but their criminal acts have made things less convenient for everyone else...