So in my experience, when a ticket clearly is refundable, AA is very good at quickly processing a refund. But of course reading the refund terms and conditions of a particular fare can be very confusing; what if it's not clear? What if you call AA for clarification and you get an agent who assures you that it's refundable; is that reliable?

Here's my recent situation: I was looking to get to Nairobi in J. It was important to me that I get a good fare, but also that it be refundable, as I knew my plans could change. My home airport is MSY, but I'd fly from any US or Canadian airport to get a better fare, and found a J fare from BOS, and returning to FLL, for $4,054, significantly cheaper than from anywhere else. (QR offered a fare from MIA for around $4,200, but it had a penalty for cancelation.) When I read the fare rules, it appeared to me to be fully refundable, but it wasn't clear, so I called AA. The agent agreed that the rules were not clear, so she put me on hold and checked with Tariffs, and then came back on the line to confirm that the fare was refundable, so I purchased it. I then upgraded one of the AA-operated legs from J to F using a SWU.

It turned out I did in fact have to cancel this ticket. I had to change my dates, and for my new dates I found a roundtrip out of YUL that was even cheaper. I put the new fare on hold, called AA again to confirm that the new fare was refundable. and when she confirmed, I asked her to cancel my initial reservation and book the new one. The process took a long time, which made me nervous, but then agent explained that she had to undo my upgrade and redeposit the SWU in my account, which took some time. After some time I got an email from AA confirming the new reservation, and another email indicating that my first reservation had been cancelled and providing a link to check on the status of my refund.

I started checking for the refund every day, and every day it said "In process." After one week, I was feeling a little nervous, so I called AA to check on it. The agent put me on hold for 20 minutes, and then I was disconnected. (I hate when that happens!). I called back, and the second agent claimed Refunds was closed (she claimed they have very limited hours), but said that she would send them an email and that I could call back the next day when they were open. I called back the next day, got yet another agent who put me on hold, but this time she came back and assured me that the refund had been processed. (BTW, each of the agents I spoke with would start the conversation by telling me that the ticket was non-refundable, but every time they looked further they found that wasn't the case. I don't know what that's about.) One day later it finally showed up in my AMEX account.

So it took a full week for AA to process my refund, which they usually do right away, and I'm not sure it ever would have happened had I not called several times. Of course maybe I'm wrong about that. And I wouldn't mind that it took a week if that were in fact normal for AA and if I wasn't getting different information from each agent, including claiming it was non-refundable. While I'm thrilled to have received my $4,054 refund, the purpose of this thread is simply to ask the questions I started this thread with. What if the fare rules are not clear? What if you call AA for clarification and you get an agent who assures you that a ticket is refundable; is that always reliable? Has anyone had an agent tell you a fare was refundable only to have AA deny the refund?