AA Ticket Refund and Related (master thread)
 

so i booked a flight on AA.com a few months ago. however a few hours after booking the flight i decided to cancel as i found a more direct routing. so i logged in online and cancelled the flight. no problem as it was only about 4 hours after booking it. it cancelled the flight with no issues. now, about 2 months later, i'm reviewing my credit card statements and realized that i never received a refund for that flight! i called AA, and they said you have to request a refund! are they serious? so cancelling a flight within the 24 hr cancellation window isn't enough, but then you have to go to prefunds.aa.com and request a refund. so i did that about 8 days ago, and it still shows up as "pending review". now first off, how can this possibly be legal? shouldnt they automatically refund it once you cancel the ticket? and then how long does it usually take to get the refund? thanks

You do realize that you will loose some $ due to canceling. Seeing that you booked the flight a few months ago, AA did not have the 24HR cancelation rule. They had a 24hr HOLD notification.

I'm sorry to hear of your frustration.

Different airlines operate different policies but I know that some require flights cancelled within the 24 hour period after purchase to be cancelled on the phone for a full and immediate refund. Not sure how AA does it.

Usually, when you are cancelling, you are not cancelling the ticket as a whole, you are cancelling your booking on certain flights. For some tickets it is possible to not have any flights (because your plans have changed and you have cancelled them) and then you have up to one year, to find and fly replacement flights (with appropriate change fees and fare differences paid by you, of course.)

How is it legal? I suspect it's all in the fine print (usually terms and conditions, and fare rules) that one agrees to when one purchases the ticket (but very few read, and even fewer understand.)

It appears that airlines are usually a littler slower to return money than to take it - they like to keep that working capital. Actually that applies to almost all businesses.

I imagine you will get your money back in full (assuming the ticket was fully refundable and/or you have met other full refund requirements!)

rb211.

If you cancelled it on aa.com, it very clearly states you must contact the refunds department (or fill out the refund form) to get a refund for the cancelled reservation.

Sneaky way to steal from the unwary. That really should be illegal.

Sorry but you aren't familiar with AA policy and this is not the best advice.

AA used to have a 24hr HOLD policy thus giving you the ability to determine within that time if you wanted to purchase the ticket or not.

Just recently (but most likely after the OP purchased his ticket) they switched to a 24hr REFUND policy.

Specifically your last statement is the most troubling as I highly doubt the OP bought a fully refundable ticket (in the US it is rare to buy a refundable ticket but not unheard of). Most likely what will actually happen is the OP will get a credit/refund less a service charge (probably $200).

For tickets purchased at least 7 days prior to departure, the DOT requires airlines to offer a free 24-hour hold or a full refund within 24 hours of purchase. Up until last month, AA chose to comply with this requirement by offering a free 24-hour hold and was therefore not required to offer a refund within 24 hours of purchase.

In part because of customer confusion, AA has now changed to the more common 24-hour refund policy, which is actually less convenient for those of us who enjoyed being able to place a ticket on hold without any money coming out of our pockets.

You can follow this thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...-but-read.html
on how they are handling refunds. Look at my post #291 for my experience.

Also as the previous poster has mentioned, you most likely wont get a refund based on AA's previous policy concerning holds.

Thanks for all the replies guys. All airlines have a 24 hr free cancellation (I believe it may be US law) and this was confirmed by the AA rep. My issue is that once you cancel you have to call/request online a refund. IMO this shouldn't be allowed. They are obviously hoping that most people don't realize this and will not request a refund. Very sleazy practice

Edit: here is the link to the 24 hr cancellation law

https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/notice-24hour-reservation

From the pdf you posted

"This notice provides guidance to U.S. and foreign air carriers regarding compliance with the customer service rule that requires carriers to hold a reservation at the quoted fare for 24 hours without payment or allow a reservation to be cancelled within 24 hours without penalty (the “24- hour reservation requirement”)."

Until recently AA were offering the 24 hour hold option and not ability to cancel without penalty within 24 hours. Both methods are in compliance with the regulation.

this is incorrect ... please read the posts above. AA only changed to the 24HR REFUND policy last month.

It would appear from the document that "...compliance with the
customer service rule that requires carriers to hold a reservation at the quoted fare for 24 hours
without payment or allow a reservation to be cancelled within 24 hours without penalty"

Given the "or," I would imagine that AA's point is they are obligated to offer one or the other. When they were still doing the 24-hour reservation (without requiring payment) process, I always understood it to mean that I was not allowed any refund if I chose to actually ticket the reservation within 24 hours. As an example, I could hold a reservation for up to 24 hours and let it expire without any cost/penalty to me. Alternatively, if I chose to ticket it immediately, I was waiving my 24-hour hold option, but was also not availing myself of a non-existent (at the time) 24-hour refund policy.

Is that the rule? Or everyone else's understanding of AA's policy at the time?

Thanks for the info; I had no idea. However I still believe they should refund me whatever is left without having to necessarily request it. The ticket was $500. Say there was a $200 cancellation fee; I should be automatically refunded $300.

Yes you are correct. When they offered the hold and you ticketed it (at any point - before or after the 24hrs) you gave up your DOT right as AA fulfilled their obligation by offering the hold time. (Now of course there always were some exceptions that they would refund within 24hrs but that was courtesy and not official policy).

That's not how a nonrefundable ticket works. You have the leftover credit (less change fee) to use on a future ticket within 1 year of the original purchase date.