I recently had a few cancellations due to covid restrictions at final destination. Refundable main cabin flexible fare on AA, booked via Amex Travel portal using my points. After cancelling and requesting refund to CC (instead of flight credit), took about 10 days for the AA refund to be processed to my Amex CC. If it's non-refundable, then Amex Travel will hold a flight credit for you for that specific airline.

If it was refundable, and you want your points back instead of cash on your CC, I think you still have to call and ask. I did read elsewhere there was a period in 2020 where Amex was batch-processing refunds where they would issue a charge on your CC (to offset the refund you had received) and automatically re-instated your points. See here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...d-25-a-70.html around post #1042.

I'm not sure if that is still happening, however.