How long to process a refund??
 

I am owed $100 by CO for a UM fee I paid at the time of ticketing that was never used after CO had to put my daughter onto US after the original CO flight was 4+ hours delayed (so I had to pay US another $100).

I received an email from CO customer service 8 days ago saying the refund was being processed to the original form of payment. When I check the refund status online, however, it shows the status as "pending review."

Obviously the refund has not posted to my CC or I wouldn't be posting the question here...do approved refunds still have a "pending" status?

Thanks!

CO is usually a week to 10 days, give or take. They may be slammed because of the now two (2) snowstorms, so it may take a bit longer.

Guess they should add a disclaimer to the website where it says it will take 7 days from the date of request...since I am now a couple days short of waiting 3 weeks.

Certainly longer than the seven business days stated on website
 

I am owed a whopping $4500, which I have been waiting for them to process since Dec 30. I had to travel internationally on an emergency (Dad passed away) on Christmas Eve. The only way to get a seat right away was to pay full (refundable) BusinessFirst fare of $9,000 round trip. Even that was confirmed with intervention of CO's 'bereavement' department.
On the way back, I had time to shop around and found a one way ticket back home on Virgin Atlantic a whole lot cheaper. So I canceled my return leg on CO. The refund request was made on the same day. But until now, the website still shows a status of 'request received - pending review'.
I have tried calling, sent emails and faxes, to no avail. When I speak to a reservation agent, they are sympathetic but say they have no way to reach the refunds department in Houston.
This situation has really put me in a hole, cash flow wise.
Any ideas on how or when I should escalate this? I was thinking of disputing the original credit card charge with my bank, but I did legitimately make the 9K purchase, as far as the bank is concerned, I guess.

Sorry to hear about your dad. I just got the email that my refund was approved late yesterday. I submitted my request the day before you (Dec 29), so maybe yours will be coming any moment now. I suspect now it will be a few days or so before the refund actually hits my card, but at least I know it was processed.

Thanks for letting me know that your refund got processed yesterday. Hopefully, they will get to mine in a day or two. I only hope that they go in date sequence, and not in ascending order of amount owed - in which case, they will never get to my $4500!

It took me two months last year to obtain a refund in the region of USD300. There were several complicating factors and the refund ended up being processed in Guam. At the time I used telephone number 1-800-932-2732 and it put me directly in touch with the Refund Department and I was lucky enough to get a very helpful agent who kept following up for me.

To the OP: I don't know if you have yet to receive your refund, but you ABSOLUTELY can dispute the 4500 charge on your credit card.

After the period of time which Continental originally quoted you for the refund, call your credit card company and dispute the charge. If nothing else, they will take the charge of temporarily, refund any interest which has accrued, until the CO refund is processed.

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That said, allow me to share a bit of comic relief to the Continental Refund Scene.....


In 2006, I booked a flight using a $400 Travel Certificate, which left about $30 left for me to pay.


Anyway, I entered the certificate number saw the balance due, and then chose TeleCheck to pay the balance. I entered my banking information, didn't really pay attention, and clicked submit. All was good until I checked my bank balance the next day, and saw I was overdrawn by 350 dollars!


I immediately called Continental, where I learned that TeleCheck could not be used in conjunction with a Vouchers. Continental cancelled the reservation, processed the refund, however they could not tell me how long TeleCheck would take to process it. They did give, a number for TeleCheck, which I called and they were able to get me the refund in just a couple days. In the meantime I called my bank explained the situation, and they refunded me any overdraft fees which had accrued. End of the day, I chalked it up to lesson learned, and left it at that.


It was about two weeks later, when I received an envelope in the mail from Continental. I opened it up, and inside was nothing else but a $430.00 check from Continental. I deposited it into my savings account, and held it for a month or so. After not receiving any hate-filled correspondence from Continental, I went out and bought my first Blackberry :-)

I would have tried to return it and only kept the money if CO had no system in place to reverse the payment....but that's just me.

Thanks a lot for digging out the refunds department phone number for me. I think the reservations agents probably have instructions not to give out the number, as I've been asking them for days!

I spoke to a helpful sounding person in the refunds department who promised to send the relevant folks an email to expedite my refund. As expected, she said they are slammed with the workload from the snow storms.

I will check the refund status in 24 hours and post it here.

I requested a refund Dec 29, having made alternative arrangements back to NYC during the Christmas snow storm fiasco... still showing "Request Received - Pending Review". I understand having a backlog, but much manual work is really required here?

More delays for refunds on partially used tickets
 

One of the things I learnt after speaking with the person in the refunds department - refunds for wholly unused tickets are automated, requiring little human intervention. However, the amount owing on partially used tickets (such as the unused return leg of a journey) are required to be computed manually by a member of their accounting staff, and that's where much of the backlog is.

Well, making that call to the refunds department really helped. I received an email overnight informing me that they finished processing my refund claim and are sending $4302 back to my credit card.

I am going to store that refunds department phone number safely for future use!