Copay upgrade cleared, sat in economy, & refunded 3 months later: a Phyrric victory
I looked on Flyertalk for other stories in which a flyer had a confirmed miles/copay upgrade, and then ultimately sat in economy and had trouble getting the copay refunded. Couldn't find one, so sharing my experience:
Nov: I'd applied and cleared a miles/copay upgrade for EWR-DFW-LAX flights in Dec. (Opted for this routing instead of my usual FK-LAX in order to try AA's 787, which was scheduled to operate the DFW-LAX segment)
Mid Dec (day of flight): 1st segment is delayed such that if I took it, I'd get stranded overnight in DFW. So I'm rerouted EWR-PHX-LAX -- in economy, due to full first class cabins.
Late December: Seeing my miles/copay hadn't been refunded automatically, I called the EXP line and requested a refund. The 15k miles are refunded, but told that to get the $75 I need to request a refund online with accounting. I do that. One month later, the request is denied without explanation.
Jan - mid March: I call the EXP line 2 more times and sent AA customer service 11 emails requesting the refund. One response was to send the flight details, which I did. Two more responses were to send the same flight details I'd already supplied. Several other responses seemed to completely misunderstand my request and just apologized for the delay. Several were never responded to.
A few days ago: Received the $75 refund, over 3 months after the flight. Truly a Phyrric victory.