Originally Posted by
radarskiy
Having a hold policy rather than a refund policy requires the buyer to know before the fact that they will need the ability to drop the booking. The buyer might chose use the hold for every applicable booking but that makes every booking a two-pass process. This increases the effort of the transaction which will cause some number in lost sales for AA.
Having a refund policy rather than a hold policy requires the buyer to float the cost of a booking that might still be cancelled.
The additional complication is that AA tickets can be sold by parties other than aa.com. Since there is no means for these 3rd parties to expose the hold option AA must still be able to provide the refund option anyway.
It depends on whether you are sure of your plans and happy with the fare offered. Completing the purchase just requires logging in again and picking up where you left off. Cancelling the purchase is about the same effort but then you have to wait some time to get your money back. I have sometimes repeatedly held an itinerary for several days while other plans congeal and then dropped it for a week or two because I hoped for a lower fare. It could be that very few people are so indecisive but hold is certainly easier than purchase in such a case. Of course, borrowing your money for a few weeks does help to compensate the airline for seats being out of inventory for a day.