An interesting data point: some time ago I booked an award flight for a friend on a domestic flight operated by Latam Peru. The flight was cancelled as a result of the recent accident at Lima airport. The friend asked me to cancel the reservation rather than rebook and I was supposed to be fully compensated. I was compensated to my Latam Wallet but interestingly, the miles for the award trip were converted into usd, at the amount that was stated during the reservation of the award (I think it was around 110 usd for a bit more than 9000 miles). The Wallet says that I should use part of the compensation money by mid-January or (if I uderstand it correctly) it will disappear. I don't think it would be easy to cash out the money back to my credit card given that I made the reservation for someone else and that the main part of the payment was made with miles. I suppose the easiest solution is to use it for a future Latam flight.