I think we are just looking to get the trip credit portion refunded as trip credit and the cash portion as cash. Not looking to get the trip credit refunded as cash. I think AA should make it clear that if trip credit is used any additional cash used to purchase a different ticket will then become trip credit. United allows trip credit to be refunded as trip credit and additional cash as cash if cancelled within 24 hours.

Based on my research, the DOT requires airlines to offer either:

1. 24-hour hold.
or
2. Refunds within 24 hours.

The DOT doesn’t require airlines to offer both.

Since AA offers 1, it doesn’t have to offer 2, so any lack of a refund for 2 would be governed by AA rules, not the DOT’s requirement.

I welcome all corrections if I’m wrong.

AA effectively offers both, even though it doesn't have to. I have never had a problem putting a reservation on hold, ticketing it the next day, then cancelling for a refund the day after that.

However, the 24 hour refund policy gets murky when partially paying with a credit. I think that means no cash refund for any of it. Just a credit for the whole thing that probably expires when the original credit was set to expire. I can't find any T&Cs that address this scenario specifically.

I had a similar issue: I placed several tickets on hold, paid for them in part using flight credits and AA charged much more than the fare that was on hold- and even more than the then-current online price. And for one of the new tickets, the agent definitely didn’t mention the total fare for the new ticket.

I checked my receipts both are labeled “exchange” and “ticket change”. Even though the new ticket has a new PNR and new ticket number.

I researched the CFR provisions and DOT guidance on point and do not see a basis for this.

I suggest a well-researched and well supported letter to the DOT, not just an online submission.

The DOT has penalized AA for refund violations (the documentation is on the DOT website), and the DOT states that it acted based on consumer complaints. Further, one guy submitted his own request for rulemaking and even though the DOT (under Bush II) declined to, it did consider it: https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/eo-2003-3-11

If anyone is interested in working on this together, please let me know.

You might not have thought that, but what part of the experience was different in any way from booking a new ticket with, e.g., a gift card instead of a trip credit? How would someone that doesn't understand the underlying ticketing mechanics come to understand that they are somehow waiving the right to a 24 hour refund? As you yourself acknowledge, it's not called out in any way on the website.

They don't have to offer both, but once they do the offer is binding, otherwise it would be an obvious bait and switch. (Which is actually the case here.) There's no exception to using a trip credit in any of the language around the 24 hour refund on their website.

Correct. Flight credit is simply portion of prior ticket which has not been used as evident by the ticket number remains unchanged when telling agent you have a flight credit.

I don't disagree with your point, but it takes someone who knows a decent amount about how this works or cares enough to find out to be able to understand that.

There is no one in my family or friend group that this would be obvious to. And I'm confident that this statement applies to the vast majority of non airline and aviation geeks.

Credits are like store credit to most people. Must be used at the store, cannot be exchanged for cash and thats about it.

As evidence that this theory is incorrect, you can apply up to eight flight credits to a single flight so obviously this is not consistently true.

When I’ve placed reservations on hold and then called AA to pay for them with flight credits-and been charged more than the held fare was- the tickets that are issued have new ticket numbers, different than the cancelled ticket numbers.

With store credit, this is a situation where the store is choosing to offer credit for some reason other than one where there is an entitlement to a refund. With store credit, the store can choose to impose restrictions on the use of credit - e.g. it could refuse a voluntary return of an item purchased on credit where it would accept that return when purchased with money

It seems from one of the replies above that this issue has previously been referred to DOT and it has sided with the airline - maybe the OP here will have a differemt response

None of the enforcement actions on the DOT website indicate this but perhaps it just hasn’t been published.

I was going by the comment in post 41

Usually the restrictions are stated at stores and this is where it is muddy with AA. I don’t think what AA is doing is wrong, I’m just saying they should be more transparent about it and that was the main complaint which DOT still has not done anything about. I think for most people they would think that they would get the refund of cash as cash and trip credit as trip credit. United does it that way. I actually did this with United prior to doing this with AA but each airline has their own policy which should be made clear.

DOT does say: “If our review of your complaint and the response from the company discloses a potential violation of our rules, we may pursue enforcement action. Generally, we pursue enforcement action on the basis of a number of complaints which may indicate a pattern or practice of violating our rules”

I agree that AA isn’t clear but should be. Just what does “hold” mean if AA doesn’t honor the fare that was placed on hold?