sbedelman

I recently refunded a full fare Y ticket. There had been several changes and add collects so the refund was split between three Amex cards. Two of them were accounts I hold and are still open and those refunds posted but the third was not. The refund confirmation from UA lists the last four digits of an Amex number for each account and Amex cannot find any account tied to me for the last card so they asked me to provide the full account number that UA credited. I emailed UA Refunds asking for this information and UA ignored the request and replied with the same information as they had previously, the last four digits. I emailed again and they ignored that message entirely. A third email has similarly been ignored.

Amex has opened a dispute but if United refuses to say where they sent my $3,200 it's not clear how Amex is going to be find it.

I've had some real head shakers with UA over the years but this one is in a class by itself. Anybody have a suggestion what to do next?

WineCountryUA

The refunds should go to the respective cards, are all the cards yours? in your name? Appears the third card was not.
Provide the full number to a non-card holder would be a non-no.

sbedelman

No way to know who's card it is. It could be one that I cancelled that is no longer in the Amex system or it could be UA messed up. But UA has an responsibility to give me my refund and it would be a lot easier if they would try and be helpful.

They know the refund hasn't gotten to me and they know the information they've provided is insufficient to find it. Their response? Stop responding.

Sigh. Anyone have a suggestion what to do next?

denuaflier

Is it possible that the third card was your card that was replaced with one of the other two cards (either expired or for security reasons)? In that case, AMEX should be able to find that refund and apply that to your current card - happened to me with Chase once.

getagb

That should also happen eventually even with no intervention. Either the credit will get applied to the replacement card, or if the account is closed they will send you a check.

WineCountryUA

Don't you know who purchased the ticket? and what cards was used?



Do you have any of the original receipts?

bhunt

Did you book the $3,200 part with Priceline or similar?

Had issue with Hotel one time. Accidental booked wrong day. I was at hotel and got room directly and they showed me where they refunded Priceline for the room I accidentally booked the next month. but Priceline refused to refund me.

1120

Your situation (multiple credit cards) sounds a little odd to me, but United's response sounds all too familiar.

I ran into this a couple years ago when I attempted to get a refund from UA on a fully refundable ticket. The phone number routed me to their website and vice versa. I filed a complaint with DOT and suddenly UA was incredibly responsive.

rmadisonwi

i find it odd that neither you nor AMEX has a record of the account you used to have but apparently recently cancelled (I presume “recent” based on the fact that the earliest one can book is around 11 months out, unless you booked way early and then made subsequent changes to keep pushing the flight later and later). But regardless, a vendor shouldn’t be giving out full credit card numbers to people anyway.

seenitall

With all due respect, on what basis does UA know that the refund hasn't gotten to you? Just your assertion? UA claims to have refunded $3200 to an AMEX card that you used for a portion of the purchase. Presumably you know all of the AMEX cards you have used over the last 12 months, and if you don't, AMEX should (assuming this wasn't some prepaid card). I think your first step is with AMEX to ascertain what cards you used, and what one contains the original $3200 charge that you say has not been refunded. If the last 4-digits of this card are different from those stated by UA, bring this to UA's attention. That should start the correction process. If AMEX has no record of any card to which you charged the $3200, maybe this charge wasn't made to an AMEX card, and start checking your VISA or MasterCards. Until you can develop some documentation to show to UA where the refund was supposed to go, why should UA presume it went to wrong location?

JVPhoto

How do you not have access to a closed/changed number? I closed an old Chase Visa card like 3 years ago and the account/#/info still shows up with my checking, savings and Explorer/Slate cards. . AMEX doesn't have something centralized as well?

Often1

The missing details here are what really confuse things.

OP says that he paid for the ultimately reissued tickets with three different cards, one of which is now closed. .

As to the third card which Amex can't locate, do the last 4 digits match the last 4 of your closed card?

Is that third card yours or somebody else's?

If this was your account and you don't have it, simply have Amex reverse the credit item and then ask UA to issue a check to the account holder.

MSPeconomist

I agree, but I wonder whether the mystery card could be a corporate travel agent, OLTA, or even a regular human personal travel agent.

Also, could it be a debit card or some sort?

Has OP searched for the original ticket receipt in his/her email? That should show at least the last four digits of the credit card, which would be a start in checking whether UA has made a mistake.

seenitall

One place to find information about old cards (assuming it was a credit card registered to the OP) is for the OP to pull a credit report report from one of the agencies. (annualcreditreport.com). These contain information (including card numbers) of all of your credit cards since time immemorial.

sbedelman

First of all thank you to everyone for your responses. It's clear I need to provide some additional information.

The original ticket was purchased by me using an Amex card a couple of years ago. I bought a full fare ticket because I was concerned the dates might change. This turned out to be correct as the people I was going to meet kept pushing the dates back. Some of the changes didn't result in a higher price but some required an add collect. I used whatever Amex card happened to be in my wallet to pay the upcharge as they were modest, around $40-70 dollars. This went on for a substantial period of time. Eventually it became clear the trip wasn't going to happen. The ticket sat in my drawer until September when I got around to dealing with it.

When I received the confirmation for the refund from United it was split among three Amex cards, two for the add collects and a third for the bulk of the fare. When the refund for the bulk of the fare didn't appear on any of my current cards I called Amex. They attempted to track down the card from the last four digits of the number that United had provided but couldn't find the card. They said this is not unusual as accounts which have been closed fall off the system and they asked me to request the entire card number from United, which I did.

I have the ticket number for the ticket I refunded. I don't have a record of the original ticket since it never occurred to me I'd need it (lesson learned).

United knows the account they credited the refund to. They also know the reference number of the transaction. Unfortunately I am unable to get United to provide that information to either myself or to American Express. While in hindsight I can see why United might not want to provide me with the full credit number to which they credited the bulk of the refund that's what American Express asked me to request them to do. United could have responded that's they'd be happy to work with Amex to track down my refund but they didn't. Instead they told me to call Amex again knowing that Amex needed additional information from United to proceed. Not particularly helpful.

I've since asked United to provide the Reference number. So far they've failed to respond. Once again, not particularly helpful.

I'm not asking United to do anything more than provide the information they have which is needed to track down a refund that hasn't gotten to where it was supposed to. Supplying the reference number or contacting Amex and providing them with that and/or the credit card number would quickly resolve the situation.

I've opened a dispute with Amex but United has taken something that is would have been simple and making it extremely difficult simply just because they can't be bothered providing the reference number.

As I said any suggestions would be welcome.