I agree that emailing LifeMiles support (or on occasion, I've had success with LifeMiles chat) is the best way to interact with LifeMiles to deal with partner award cancellations and mileage redeposits. Calling into the service center is a nightmare. Refunds of taxes and fees take months to be posted in my experience. As to "The only major downside to this approach is that as you call out, you will not receive your refund of your $25 partner award booking fee. Given that this approach only takes a few minutes of mental energy compared to hours on the phone, that's a trade-off I'm willing to take" - Personally, I have never been successful getting the $25 booking fee refunded. LifeMiles may refund it sometimes to some customers, but I've never been successful in getting it refunded. I always accept that fee as a possible loss as soon as I book the original ticket, so buyer beware. Some folks may have been able to get LifeMiles to refund the $25 fee, but in about 10 plus booking/involuntary cancellation attempts I have never been successful. So I clearly don't know the trick to doing that part of it.