On September 6th I cancelled a points reservation made back in March, and I did not get points refunded back to my account. I thought I had waited enough days after August 18th to be safe, but I was wrong. Then I thought perhaps I will wait a few more weeks and points will be refunded automatically without me asking anything, but several weeks later still nothing. So I called and raised to issue. The ambassador put me on hold and discussed with accounting, and they got back to me saying that I was not refunded because when I made the booking in March, points were never taken out of my account and that there was no reward certificate attached to this reservation.

I went back to the e-mail I received in March when I made this booking, and there is a reward certificate number shown in the e-mail, but the first 4 digits are XXXX. I don't even know where all the digits would be shown. The ambassador told me that I will have to provide alternate proof that points were taken out of my account because accounting is adamant that points were never taken out.

Fortunately, I do have proof. On the same day that I made this booking (that I subsequently cancelled in September), I had previously made another points redemption a few minutes prior at another hotel and I had kept a screen shot showing my account balance after that booking was made. Then when a few minutes later I made the booking in question, I took another screen shot of that one, showing the new points balance after that booking. So I have a screen shot before and a screen shot after making my reservation in question. The delta in my points balance is equal to the points required for that booking, as expected.

I am 100% sure that the points were taken out of my account and proof to show it. I am assuming that it will now get resolved properly and that I will get my points back, but my main takeaway is that it is quite disturbing to hear definitive statements from accounting that points were NOT taken out when I know for a fact that it's not true. If they are unsure of what happened because of the merger-related mess, then take a few days to investigate, but don't tell me my account balance is fine when I know it's not.

What if I did not have the habit of taking screen shots? What if I was not lucky enough that I had made another unrelated reservation just prior to the one in question to prove what my account balance was immediately before I booked? I would have to kiss good bye to my points?