Hi All:
OP here. To clarify, they denied my request for rental car reimbursement, but said this:
"We cannot assume financial responsibility for our customers' time lost or for out-of-pocket expenses incurred as a result of operational problems. Therefore, we must respectfully decline reimbursement of your rental car. However, this doesn't mean we do not care what happened and can sympathize there was not an earlier flight available for your rescheduling and you drove instead.
Regarding your unused ticket segment, we've authorized personnel in our Passenger Refunds department to issue the applicable credit.Once the adjustment is processed by the accounting specialists in that department, a credit will be issued to your credit card account. Depending on your bank billing cycles, it could take up to 2 cycles for the credit to be reflected on a statement. In addition, you can track the status of your refund via AA.com at the following link:
https://www.refunds.aa.com (please allow 2 weeks before checking progress)."
While I'm not surprised they declined reimbursement for the car, I do think they could have offered a voucher, some miles...something. Be that as it may, I waited two weeks and checked the refund site. It states that their records indicate that no refund has been requested. Oy. So, now I guess I'll have to fill out the refund form - again - for me and also have my friend do the same. I usually don't get too bent out of shape over flight-related problems, but this annoys me. It really makes one think it's made purposely difficult. I wish they had an ombudsman one could call.
DKM