If Amex somehow just sends the credit back to AA, the OP is still out the actual refund for the canceled flight. I don’t think you could tell Amex to just send back 99% of the refund.

Get one of the bloggers to embarrass AA with this mess. Someone at AA will read it.

Bad IT systems and controls - both hallmarks of AA.

Something like this shouldn't happen, but it does. I worked with a Fortune 100 company and every time their PO integration would back up, the guy in charge just deleted the entire queue. Voila no problems, but also zero idea what was supposed to be where.

Heck, even companies that have their stuff together more have these issues. Remember the guy who submitted fake invoices to Google, Meta etc. and they just paid em? https://www.npr.org/2019/03/25/70671...of-100-million

Years ago I had something similar happen when refunding a ticket. It was a few thousand dollars and I couldn't make it because of a sick relative. Fare rules allowed full refund for sick relative or a refund for a fee otherwise. Called to cancel before the flight and said I would send in doctor's note for full refund. AA refunded me twice--once for the amount of the fare minus fee and once for the full amount a few days later after they received my note. This caused my account to go negative by about $5000. Called back and they said everything looked fine on their end. Left my account negative assuming someone would come back asking for or just correct the refund, but it never happened. Credit card company eventually sent me a check for the balance after about a year saying I can't leave a negative balance for that long.

Thanks for everyone's advice so far.

I already did "dispute" the refund with AMEX. AMEX said the "refund" will stay on my account until the investigation is completed.

Update is I got an email reply from [email protected] (not sure to which inquiry since I sent multiple emails and phone calls) that based on the conversion rate I should have gotten US$1000. Did not address my explanation that I got over $100K. I can't believe they are dropping the ball this badly.

If this drags on for several more days I may end up having to reach out to one of the bloggers haha.

Oh, they know where to find you.

I would send an email to AA saying if the issue isn't rectified within 7 days then I'm going to Vegas and putting it all on black and we'll split the result - both of us get $100000 or both get zip.

You could try tweeting it and tagging AA. A viral tweet would fix it pretty quick 😂

Why not contact one of the bloggers like View from the Wing who seems to be connected or Jonnyc on Twitter.

I sent a message to JonNYC earlier this afternoon after the useless reply from customer service, so hopefully they reply. I'll give it another couple days before reaching out to VFTW/Gary Leff.

this might be a stupid question but given the length you have gone to in order to rectify the situation, why go even further? at what point are you going to give up and just let the credit stay in your account?

That's a good question. If it were just the cash, I would just let it sit and gain interest until AA comes knocking for their money back, as others have suggested.

However, it's not cash in my pocket, it's an AMEX credit balance which renders my AMEX points unusable since the points balance is now well in the negative, and I'm concerned such a large transaction/refund could trigger a shutdown tripwire or financial review (about which I'm not too concerned about passing, but rather the frozen accounts/extreme hassle of going through it based on reports).

Call me pedantic but I'd value 100k USD credit in my account a lot more than the points associated with that sum of money. So again I'll ask the question you didn't answer, at what point would you stop fighting them to rectify the situation? Are you just not going to use your Amex? I assume if you charge $1000 to the card this month they won't let you pay $1000 due to the huge credit.

At this point I too would be a lot more worried about the second-order problems from American Express if they believe you are somehow involved in a fraudulent refund scheme. I'd escalate to the executive office - email the CEO and there's a group that tends to respond - proactively and send them copies of your correspondence to date with AA attempting to rectify the issue. If you can get someone to note your Amex account ahead of time that this is just a comically large error and not the beginnings of some type of money laundering or other financial crime web, you may save yourself some heartache. This is especially true once American Express, either through your prodding or their own automated processes, decide to send you a credit balance refund -- one can only imagine the shenanigans a six-figure account balance refund check from a single transaction not associated in any real way with an actual charge will set off on their end. They may even hold on to the money in a frozen account and then, with that type of luck, AA will come knocking with a legal letter looking for their $100k which of course is stuck frozen somewhere inside the belly of Amex. Best to try your damndest to document now.

As for AA, the hell with them.

I wonder how that would impact a credit score - which can often go down (for whatever reason) when you pay off a credit card balance.

I think this depends on the legal stuff here. No experience with a situation like this, and like the OP I'd not sleep well over this and want to do the honest thing. But, is there a point at which this money legally becomes his/hers, or could AA theoretically come knocking 1-5-10 years later for this?
I do agree with the others - get a check from AMEX to clear that side up, stick it in a HYSA, and sit until you figure out more. This seems like the best way to keep most sides happy until you learn more.