As others have noted above, other airlines have a more customer-centric refund process. Also think of Amazon where you can choose original payment method or credit for a future purchase.

It's almost inexcusable that at AA you can pay for something refundable, then have to cancel and do a second step to attempt to get your money back. They're probably hoping you forget. Further, in this day and age of near-instant payment systems and AI bots, I find the "up to 10 days" processing time for refunds too lengthy and unacceptable.