LondonElite

What a mess. I would just charge back, but I can see Amex resisting that given the way that conversation has been going...

nock

Try filing a DOT complaint.

mpw81

While this data point isn't about contacting Amex Travel, I'm posting it here since the ticket was booked through Amex Travel (pay with points) and I assumed I would have to call and deal with them. As it turns out, that doesn't seem to be necessary, so it's relevant as a way to "avoid contacting amex travel."

Had a intl trip (DEN-Europe-DEN) scheduled to depart today (sad face) but the flights had been cancelled with no reschedule for at least a week or 2, UA ticket, all LH metal. Got the reservation cancelled email on Monday with $0 refundable amount. This was for my wife, who has Untied Gold status. Knowing she'd probably get routed to the UA premier desk, decided to try and call UA first and see if they could handle. As United has been doing, agent offered credit and ETC options but wasn't pushy, just seemed to be following the script. Politely declined and said she'd prefer a refund. Agent processed the refund but said refund department was a little backlogged and they were saying it would probably take 7-14 days. Got the confirmation email from UA before I got off the phone indicating the refund would be processed to the card it was booked on. Probably 5 mins total.

phelme

hmm, received a cancellation confirmation email from AmEx Travel (Expedia) yesterday about a Cambodia/Vietnam trip on Cathay Pacific, cancelled about 16 days ago. Unfortunately, the amount quoted on it that they are refunding is only for a single ticket cost. Could be Cathay is refunding one ticket at time. the other wrinkle is we used some points for the purchase, so maybe that partial dollar credit on the 2nd ticket has to be worked out and accounts for the discrepancy. haven't contacted them yet.

also, that Trip ID entry has now disappeared from AmEx Travel like it never happened. hmmm.

mpw81

This also happened to me.

SJCMIKE

I have received no email cancellation confirmations, but after seeing this, I logged on to "My Trips" to see if anything had changed.

I have 2 separate round trips SFO to LHR. Both trips are still there....shown as upcoming and both show cancelled.

The returned amount has changed from Zero to just a single ticket cost, as observed above.

This refund of a single ticket cost is the same for both trips so this is not a Cathay issue as my flights are on BA.

I too used some points for these bookings.

gary_nj

This morning, my AMEX card is showing the refund of my three separate JAL tickets. Travel was scheduled for March and April. I had cancelled the earliest of the three about March 18. A few days ago I noticed that the amextravel.com site showed the tickets with the correct refund amount (previously the refund amount had been showing zero). This morning, I see the refunds processed onto my card. Interesting that all three refunds were posted on the same date, even though my cancellations happened at different times.

Scott in LA

Refunds for my JAL tickets, puchased through Amex Travel (and cancelled March 16), also showed up today. The refund transactions are dated April 4, but I've been checking online pretty much daily, and they weren't listed yesterday morning.

phelme

did either of you use points towards your purchase?

while I received that aforementioned email about the credit, nothing has actually shown up on my account as of yet.

gary_nj

I did not use points for my purchase. Used the International Airline Program discount, but paid cash. My refunds were also dated April 4, but just showed up today.

Scott in LA

Ditto to this in its entirety.

I will add that the last email I received before today was about a week and a half ago, confirming the cancellation, but still showing a refundable amount of $0. The next communication was an email this morning with the refund posting, which I confirmed online.

goldtiger

Had an absolutely miserable experience trying to get a refund for business class tickets going from East Coast to London next month on BA.

AmexTravel & British Airways did not email me or notify me at all when my flight was cancelled on the 5th... I just happened to check British Airways app and the record locator disappeared. So then I found out the flight was cancelled by looking up the flight online, so I naturally wanted to get a refund. Had to find original AXT trip ID and call AmexTravel customer service to request refund.

1st Call - yesterday to AmexTravel : "You need a waiver from BA. Try again later."
2nd Call - called British: "Absolutely no problem, since your flight was cancelled by us you are entitled to a full refund. We've annotated the record locator and changed the record in Sabre, call AmexTravel and they will process refund"
3rd Call - called AmexTravel: "We don't see that waiver, you need to get BA to issue the waiver or alter the record for us to see they give permission for the full refund. We can't help."
4th Call - Called British: Explained what AmexTravel said, they said that AmexTravel is BS'ing me & I need to be forceful with AmexTravel, confirmed that waiver was issued/permission was given, said AmexTravel has been doing this a lot recently to evade giving out refunds
5th Call - called AmexTravel: "We still don't see that waiver. We can't do anything."
6th Call - called British: Same as 4th call.
7th Call - called AmexTravel, took 2 full hours, demanded supervisors, all were useless, asked for these key words "Customer Service Excellence Supervisor" and was finally connected to someone that was able to issue a refund, despite trying to get me multiple times to take a voucher instead.

There's over half a day wasted on calls.
Absolutely ridiculous process. After all, my flight was CANCELED by the airline, should be a super simple refund process, and should be able to be done online.
They said refund will take "at least" 30 days to process and an additional 5-7 business days to post back to card.

Whatever you do: MAKE SURE to get them to email you somehow with the date and amount of refund. They do not do this by default. This way if they don't credit your card later you can dispute the actual charge.

SJCMIKE

I assume (perhaps incorrectly) in these cases, the airlines provide a refund to AMEX/Expedia and if cardholder just gets or takes a voucher/credit, then AMEX/Expedia end up with a huge cash float.

I guess we have all learned from this experience.

The tickets I booked through the concierge service for the $39 service charge, were cancelled and refunded with just one call, while I am still battling over the the flights booked through the AMEX website........

nock

I now see a refundable amount equivalent to 1 of the tickets (out of 2) on the "My Trips" section of the amex travel website. According to other posts, this seems to be a precursor to an actual refund. I called and cancelled the trip on 3/24 as a point of reference (on Delta).

SJCMIKE

I am still tracking down why my two refunds are only for one ticket cost and not two so I went back and checked the original invoice for the two trips I cancelled.

Both of these trips used a combination of points and cash.

On both of the original ticket invoices, one of the tickets showed the actual round trip price and the other ticket was at a discounted price reflecting the points I used, so they obviously applied the points to only one ticket and not the overall cost.

As was pointed out by PHELME, the missing refund for the discounted tickets due to using points probably requires manual intervention to calculate the correct refund amount.

...but still no email or confirmation of the single ticket refunds yet.