Hi all, first, apologies if this is has been covered - the threads I saw on locked accounts had to do with fraud.

I flew RT on LAX-HKG a few weeks ago, upgrading from Y to J on the outbound using a miles and $350 upgrade. A few weeks later, I suddenly couldn’t access my account. When I called, AA stated (incorrectly) that I that I didn’t pay the $350 copay. What actually happened is that the payment occurred at a later date due to credit card (CC) issues, but they won’t listen to my side of the story. I’ve detailed the events below:

• A few months before the flight, I requested a miles + $350 copay upgrade for the outbound flight and gave them my CC info.
• Subsequently, my CC issuer told me that as a preventative measure against fraud, they were issuing me a new card (and cancelling the old one).
• I called AA to notify them of the new number, and they told me that to put in a new CC number, they would have to cancel my request and then reissue, putting me at the back of the upgrade line. They said if the upgrade clears, they will send me a notice for the copay, so no action was recommended.
• Upgrade cleared, so I flew to HKG in J. No notice for payment was received, although I got an email notifying me of the upgrade, and the $350 copay was mentioned at the bottom of the notice. Sometimes, stored CC numbers may continue to work, so at the time, I assumed that is what happened.
• Upon checking in to my return flight to LAX, the ticket agent said that the co-pay was declined (so clearly the old, stored CC number didn’t work) and they can’t check me in for my return flight if I don’t pay the $350. So I handed them my new card, they charged my copay, and I returned to the US.
• The fee showed up on my CC statement (unfortunately along with a forex fee, but that is my fault for not having a fee-free CC).
• About 3 weeks after the trip, I suddenly could not log into my account via laptop or mobile app, so I called the number indicated by the login failure message.
• After being passed around a couple times to different CSRs, they told me that the copay was declined, and to unlock my account, I needed to pay the $350. I explained that the *original* charge was declined, but I paid the fee while checking in at HKG.
• I read them the document number from my CC statement (which matches the one on the copay receipt I got in HKG). They told me that is the transaction that was declined, so the only solution was to pay $350. I told them that the charge showed up on my CC statement, so clearly it wasn’t declined. I am obviously willing to pay for the copay once, but not twice.
• The CSR then told me that a refund was requested. I asked who requested the refund, but they didn’t know – they thought it might have been me (it definitely wasn’t). They said to check the status of the refund on aa.com/refunds – after the call, I did this just to see what I’d find, but no record of a refund request was found. In any case, if the transaction really was declined, I wouldn’t think there would be any refund to request.
• The CSR who handled the details of this issue had a rather belligerent, “customer is wrong” tone, saying that the research into this issue had been done, and the only way to unlock my account was to pay the $350 – they said that if I am double charged in error, it could be fixed later. That doesn’t sound reassuring to me.

So, when checking in to my return flight at HKG, I paid the $350, got a receipt, and my CC statement reflects this (not just a pre-authorization), yet AA is still claiming that I still need to pay. I am wondering what are the next steps to take. I thought about the “hang up, call again” approach, but not sure if I will just get passed eventually to the same person/department again. Is there a way to have AA open up another investigation into where my $350 went so I can get my account unlocked?

Thanks in advance!