Kthelusma

Last year, I booked a flight with American Airlines on July 11th at 0141. The flight was booked for July 17th. During the day, I realized that I wouldn't be able the fly then and cancelled the flight on the same July 11th at 11:32 pm.

I was supposed to get an automatic refund because I met the criteria:

1. the flight needs to be at least 2 days before.
2. the cancellation needs to be done within 24 hrs of booking.

A week went by and I didn't get a refund. I called AA and they said that they couldn't find the reservation. I called customer service and was told to send an email. I emailed customer service and they advised to email the refund department. I emailed refund, they declined the refund and said that I need to meet the 2 criteria above. I replied to them that I did meet the criteria and sent them screenshots of the emails. I still didn't hear from them.

I really don't want this to force me to escalate it legally as I don't agree to loose my money like this and I have been a loyal AA executive card holder. I would want to know how else I can escalate the matter because knowing that my money gets stolen like this is hurtful.

Not only loosing the money is hurtful, but I have to keep wasting so much time contacting them and sending emails left and right. That is really not fair.

ashill

Keep trying with AA, but this sounds to me like a good case for an overused suggestion in FlyerTalk: a credit card chargeback. You appear to be in the right, and you have tried to resolve the issue with the merchant, and have documentation.

IADCAflyer

I thought there was a time limit on when you could initiate a charge back - like 60 days after the service or fee posts (or maybe its 60 days after the statement date on which the service or fee posts).

ashill

Depends when "last year" the booking was made, I guess. I gathered from the OP that this was relatively recent.

IADCAflyer

From the OP: "Last year, I booked a flight with American Airlines on July 11th at 0141."

apeortdz

OP - welcome to Flyertalk. You will get some good info here. I hope you return to tell us what your resolution is.

USFlyerUS

FWIW, you should still have a credit you can use (assuming this wasn't a BE ticket). Do you have any travel plans where you can just use the credit? That might be easier than continuing to fight this, especially since I think a chargeback is no longer possible given how old the charge is.

javabytes

Did you use a flight credit to pay for all or part of this reservation?

jordyn

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Since this may be too late for a chargeback, I suggest filing a complaint with the Department of Transportation. This will likely result in someone competent at American looking at the issue and issuing a refund, since one is clearly in order here.

To OP: in the future, don't be so patient. If you haven't received your refund in a timely manner and issued multiple attempts to resolve it with the airline, simply dispute the charge with your credit card company and you'll get your money back promptly.

Dave Noble

With a service not being delivered, it is , iirc, 120 days from date that service was due to be delivered. Given that this was 6 months ago, the limit would seem to have passed. Disputing the charge with the card company would have been an excellent idea within that limit period and is what I would have done a couple weeks after waiting for the money.

Antarius

Did you submit for a refund here: https://prefunds.aa.com/refunds/ ?

If not, try that. The left hand and right hand of AA don't always talk, so it's possible your refund request got lost in the ether.

Also, as USFlyerUS said, you should have a flight/trip credit unless it was a basic economy ticket. Do you? Finally, as javabytes asked, did you use any credits? If so, based on data points here, the cancelled cost will go back to you as a credit, not a refund. Even if the credit was a small portion of the total fare.

taxatty56

I had no luck with a CC chargeback claim for a similar situation involving a different airline--it proved to be a total waste of time. In contrast, per advice I received on that airline's FT board, a subsequent DOT compliant got me the desired result within 10 days of filing it.

Dave Noble

I had no trouble on the 2 times that I have done it. There was a refund due and so the dispute was accepted by the card company and , unsurprisingly, the airline didn't try countering the dispute

ashill

Sure enough; I missed the July 11 purchase date and thought they were saying they purchased a ticket last year for travel July 17 2024. That definitely makes things more difficult.

dogcanyon

My sister was able to get a chargeback approximately 8 months after the charge when she was sold a voucher for a future service and the company ceased operations before she could use it, so it never hurts to try.