"Full refund to original form of payment"
 

Some time ago I bought a ticket. The website gave me the choice of paying an additional $650 if I wanted a ticket that I could cancel for "a full refund to original form of payment."

I elected to pay that extra amount. Now I do have to cancel, but when I go online and choose "cancel" aa.com says "After you cancel, you'll receive a travel credit for ... future travel on American."

I backed out and came here to ask for advice.

In my experience you have to request a refund, you can either call or use the online form,

https://www.aa.com/refunds/#/lookup

So don't even bother cancelling online? Just go straight to Refunds?

Whatever you decide to do, do not accept the credit for future travel. If you do accept it, you may forfeit your right to a cash refund.

If you paid extra for the full refund benefit then you should pursue that avenue if you should so choose per the AA refund link.

You can't request refund until you cancel. If you're seeing that verbiage that it will go back as a travel credit, then call reservations and confirm with them that the fare is refundable to form of payment and have them cancel it. You still will have to go to the link provided above for the refund.

So I called. The agent went to her rate desk and determined that the ticket was refundable. She told me to just go ahead and cancel online, despite the message saying I would get a credit. I told her to wait while I did this. After cancelling, I went to refunds and entered the ticket number and my life story, as requested. Fortunately, I wasn't told, "Hey, buddy, you got a credit. You can't ask for a refund now."

I do wish that, if somebody buys a refundable ticket and then tries to refund it, the system would at least ask if they wanted a refund instead of a nice credit. That's apparently impossible. Of course the itinerary itself makes no mention of the fact that the ticket is refundable.

All in all, AA is a lot better at taking my money than giving it back. The agent I spoke to said, "I hear ya." Life goes on, I guess.

Same thing happened to me actually which was very confusing but I figured I fly enough that I'd use the credit anyway so didnt bother calling in or anything. Then when I tried to use the credit, the system errored out and said the ticket is eligible for a refund. So basically AA wants you to create a credit which you then cant use and have to separately request a refund for. Make it make sense AA. It's odd because anytime I cancel an award the miles and taxes are redeposited very quickly without any extra steps

I know you are suppose to cancel the ticket first but I have always gotten the refund without cancelling when I use the form, it is one extra step but at least it tends to work unlike so many other things as it relates to airline it these days, in the end the systems simply weren’t build for the current world and this relates to all of the airlines

This sort of issue does not relate to all airlines. If I cancel a ticket on Air New Zealand, it will automatically process any entitled refund and will even detail the refund amount due

Delta is very good at this as well. The app and website will tell you exactly how you will receive the refund and offer a credit versus cash back to the credit card of you have a refundable fare. Same with their instant upgrades for seats.

My guess is that their systems are not integrated on the back-end, which is why multiple steps are needed to get a cash refund and why agent review is nearly always required.

The AA refund mechanism definitely leaves something to be desired. I actually have a refund in process now (not even to original payment, but to credits) where it was Mrs. dlnewbie and I on one PNR. Refund requested for all pax at same time and hers has returned to a credit, while I am still waiting on mine three days after hers credited. Any other airline I've refunded to either original or credits, it processes all passengers on the same PNR at the same time. They do usually get it right over time, but can be frustrating. Here's hoping that maybe they'll will invest in systems at some point.

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.

With the up to 10 days processing time - (not an airline) but when I process refunds, the system tells me that 10 days needs to be allowed - it is normally much quicker, but that is still what I tell customers so that they have the same expectatoion that the card processor is telling me

The same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Two of us on the same PNR. One credited immediately, but mine took about two weeks. When I called after 10 days to see what was wrong, the reply was, “That’s just how it works; they process by ticket number and not PNR. You’ll get it eventually.”