The booking was made in October 2019 for July 2020 flights. The reservation had been changed a few times before July but I kept it until it was obvious that I wasn't allowed to fly into Thailand, so I suspended the reservation.
Due to the fact that I already had another reservation to BKK for 2021 which I upgraded to First Class, I decided to cancel that previous suspended reservation and request a full refund (including the A La Carte meal I bought with it).
I called LH in Warsaw on Monday (they don't have a separate line or "press 5" for status holders). A nice LH agent said the refund might take up to 3 months to be processed. She proactively sent me the email with the confirmation of my refund request (btw you do not receive such an email when you do it yourself on LH site).
And the full refund amount, including the A La Carte meal payment, was in my credit card account on Tuesday, showing the Monday date when I asked for the refund.
Perhaps it was a different process if you say so... I'd rather hope it was the Senator status which (finally!) proved to be helpful.