I cancelled a reward ticket on August 11. To date I have not had the miles reinstated. I filled out the refund form. Sent messages on Twitter. They said they have the refund. Most airlines reinstate the miles instantly. Why does it take so long for this airline?

Nothing yet after cancellation on 8/11. This is really ridiculous . Most airlines reinstate points immediately.

Call CX?

Cathay offered unlimited changes to all the tickets issued in the past few years due to COVID. I changed the departure date on my reward ticket in late Dec and they took points away from my account for making the change. I contacted them immediately but still it took them a week to reinstate the miles. They should really upgrade their system...

I am wondering if OP can comment on how many miles are needed to cancel the redemption ticket? Did he/she notice that at the time of booking or cancellation?

Redemption tickets used to be very flexible but seem to be less so now, and ticket conditions appear to have changed without any publicity and cannot be checked in advance of confirming a redemption booking (or if they can, I don't know how to do it). Others may have further data points but I have observed the following (forgive me if my memory is not completely accurate):

It currently costs 10,000 miles to redeem a single economy ticket from Hong Kong to Tokyo. It costs 12,000 miles to cancel that ticket. In the case of OP situation, there may be a possibility that the cost of cancellation in terms of miles is more than the original in which case miles may not be coming back.

For changing flights, it used to cost 4,000 miles to do this over the telephone but 2,000 miles to do this online. Recent experience is that it costs 7,500 miles to change (online) a single business class redemption ticket from Hong Kong to Tokyo (the original ticket for that leg cost 25,000 miles - the change "fee" is therefore quite a high percentage (30%) compared to the original ticket cost).

What are other people experiencing?

Indeed, there has been a recent change, but the penalties are clearly listed at https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_...-and-fees.html. Refund penalty is currently 17000AM, not 12000AM. Note although the change fee has increased, it used to be per flight, not per change for a single ticket.

So I called today after getting back to the us, and all that I did , did not trigger the refund. I cancelled online and filled out the refund form. When I called, they sent me a link to pay the $120 to get the miles back and the $166 in taxes. Of course, when I payed, I got a screen having technical difficulties. So, I called back which was a painful process. Payment did go through, and the miles are back, and the refund will take 4 to 6 weeks.

I got also the error while paying the cancellation fee. I used the account's chat function and the first agent couldn't verify whether they got the payment but she transferred me to some other department where the agent was able to confirm that they received the payment. I got connected to both agents immediately but it took almost 1hour to get the confirmation that they received the payment. Not totally smooth experience but at least they got the payment despite the error.

Thank you - much appreciated!

Does this "check my refund status: function work for anyone? After entering my e-ticket number and it says couldn't find my cancelled reservation in the system.

just call up. takes 24-48 hour max for miles return