"Non refundable" or not. AMEX doesn't care about gimmicks. They don't care if what you bought has a "No Refund" policy. Or a "Restocking fee". The fact is, if you're not completely satisfied with whatever is charged on your card, they encourage you to open a dispute so they can take matters into their own hands and fully credit you the charge. You should learn more about the perks of being an AMEX cardholder.

I have, and I have.

Reading up on it, there are these terms (among others):

So, the OP's situation is excluded from Return Protection on at least two counts. It should be obvious without even having to look it up that non-refundable airline tickets are not covered by Amex Return Protection - otherwise, we'd be hearing all about it around here.

Nope. He received exactly what he purchased - a non-refundable airline ticket. The fact that he ended up not needing or using it isn't relevant. Nor is the fact that he knew this at the time of purchase.

Neither Purchase Protection or Return Protection result in chargebacks to the merchant. You seem to imply that Return Protection would force the merchant to refund the purchase even when they otherwise wouldn't, just because an Amex card was used to make the purchase. That's not how it works. Those protections are insurance products that are funded by premiums paid by Amex that come out of the revenue you generate for them - the merchant pays for neither the claims nor the premiums. It sounds like you have some kind of issue with Amex that is bleeding over into this thread, even though it's probably not related.

There are several problems with this. For one, if the passenger doesn't have the means to buy such a ticket, the inbound transporting carrier must transport them back at their own expense and is unlikely to be able to collect the cost after the fact. Second, if a passenger is denied entry for a documentation issue that they should have caught before boarding the passenger on the inbound flight, they are subject to a fine by the country denying entry. And, even if they don't get fined on each instance, having "too many" such situations creates problems. Third, for the passenger, having a denied entry to a particular country on their record may cause problems for future entries, even if they meet the requirements those times. For example, for people visiting the US on the Visa Waiver Program, if they ever get denied entry, that results in a lifetime ban of using that program, and forever thereafter they must apply for a visa to visit the US even though their nationality ordinarily doesn't have to.

So in cases such as this, carriers act the way they do because a) they're required by law to do so, and b) it's in their best interest to do so. It's also in the passenger's best interest, even if they don't realize it, although it's doubtful that this is why the carriers enforce the rules.

That defeats the purpose of having a refundable ticket if you have to pay $100 out of your pocket. Look at the total cost of the ticket from VTE-BKK, the cheapest one is $67. That goes up to a more expensive $200. So why should someone pay $200 for a refundable ticket, only to pay $100 in fees and still have to pay more than a non-refundable $67 ticket?

That's like if I said. Buy my ticket for $50. No refunds. But if you pay me $100. Then you can get a refund after you pay me a fee of $50.... in the end you're still paying $50 anyways. So whats the point of buying a refundable ticket if you are still paying the same (or more) than the lowest price?

It needs to be on the same carrier you fly into the country on because of the fact that they can confirm it is real. If you book a one way flight.... they need to see a return flight IN THEIR SYSTEM or else they won't let you board the flight. So you can not have a flight out of the country on Airline 2 because its not confirmed. Airline 1 still can deny your boarding if they only have a 1 way ticket in their system even tho you show a flight out on Airline 2