Originally Posted by
Phantomchickenz81
Update on this. I had one chat agent say it will take 3-7 days to refund the Avios, so I had to purchase additional Avios to book my preferred redemption. Then went to cancel the old one (via a different chat agent) and the Avios were refunded instantly. Grrrrr….
Senior FT Posters often have much more experience than recent Airline agents. You should have trusted the consensus of posters here ("instantly").