An American Airlines customer got a huge surprise on their American Express statement when they refunded an American Airlines ticket. They expected to get $1,000 back – and instead received a windfall $100,000.
Knowing that the money wasn’t theirs, they quickly called American – who insisted that the refund was processed correctly! Clearly that was wrong so they escalated things and even filed a ‘dispute’ of the refund with American Express. There was a currency conversion error when the ticket, which had been purchased outside the U.S., was refunded and surely the customer could make someone see that!
However, while the passenger eventually got an acknowledgment that there was a mistake, things still aren’t going well trying to get it fixed. In fact, the customer is being punished for their honesty and perseverance in trying to get American Airlines their money back – because they’ve just been charged $28 million.
I’d like to think that American Express knows I could never pay a $28 million charge, and wouldn’t approve it! Although I guess they’ve just earned 140 million Membership Rewards points for the airfare spending, since this was billed to their Platinum American Express card which earns 5 points per dollar on airfare? (Although American Express wouldn’t normally release the points until the bill was paid – hah).
Before now, the customers had several worries.
- The $100,000 refund sent their Membership Rewards account balance into the negative. If they had to write a check back to American, they’d be in perpetual points deficit because of the transaction.
- They faced foreign exchange risk – billing a new charge would be costly if exchange rates moved against the customer. A 2% move in rates could mean he was out $2,000.
- Would American Express close his account or subject him to a financial review because of the massive credit balance?
Now the worry is even greater! Will they be bankrupted by this American Airlines mistake? What’s it going to do to their credit score (that’s some hefty utilization!)? Will American Express close down their account? Will other card issuers?
As I said in your earlier post on this topic: No good deed goes unpunished.
God bless our dear leader for killing the CFPB. /s
Of course you could, that’s only a couple years’ net revenue from this blog.
@Dick — You are your name. Again.
Well, no surprise for 1990’s comment. President Trump didn’t dismantle your ability to file a complaint. Just you spewing nonsense, and of course your termninal TDS. At least perhaos we won’t go the way of Venezuela. CPFBs can still be filed in the customary way. I fly for the aforementioned airline. Thus is an unheard of situation. Likely there is another factor involved.
@ 1990 – Well, what exactly is wrong about Dick’s comment?
How ridiculous. Computers are supposed to make our lives easier, but often do the exact opposite.
A whole lot of wills and it’s in the article. It’s like it was written 30mins into making phone calls and leaves us hanging with 3rd grader ideas of what might happen when waiting a couple of days would’ve had actual answers like, they fixed it all since the transactions weren’t ever real in the first place.
It’s people who have our lives at their finger tips and don’t know what they’re doing. None of the employees are ever American or American based. The response from American Express and American are all A typical. Can anyone get of a script and do their darn Jon. This can easily be resolved and no one can think for themselves it like the blind leading the blind. FIX IT
It doesn’t surprise me at all. On February 12th, 2025 i was assaulted on an American Airlines flight. I pointed out the man to flight crew and they did nothing. I’ve filed a police report but American Airlines had done nothing to help identify the man.
Often read but never commented before. For the past two days your ads cover the entire screen on the Samsung Galaxy Fold 5. There is no way to x them off. Only way is to leave site and then come back and hope it doesn’t pop up again. Please let your ad server know about this.
@Kitty — What’s wrong about Dick mocking Gary by suggesting his ‘blog’ nets $28 million…? You’re either naive, or you’re ‘in on’ Dick’s bad-faith joke. If you are ‘new here,’ then please note Dick is known for his awful takes. As I’ve said before, I’m not ‘into’ Dick.
Are you kidding me? Once American Airlines acknowledged the refund was correct in writing, withdraw the money. Put it in an interest bearing account and wait for American to come looking for you. They want it back, negotiate. They’ll get their money back minus your finders fee. Attorneys, fine, they’ll get less back.
The victims here are going to have a hell of a time explaining this mess to the us Treasury department’s FATCA goons.
They will probably conclude this is obviously money laundering.
Civil asset forfeiture is right around the corner. With lots of heavily armed homeland security wonks breaking down doors by operatives with qualified immunity.
Despicable. Nearly as bad as Walmart or Hertz.
Guy needs to hire a lawyer and quick.
Remember: American Express “protects” their employees even when they are wrong.
Get ready to get cancelled. That’s what amex does.
Just dispute the charge. It would be interesting to see how American justifies this nonsense. This headache is American induced and should become American’s headache not the customer’s. Let them keep the 100k and maybe American will care enough to prevent this in the future.
Did this person originally pay in Indonesian rupiah or some other low value currency? I recently lost about 40 bucks in currency when a foreign car rental agency improperly charged me a large deposit in local money and the dollar appreciated that month. Annoying, but it seemed like a weird thing to dispute for a still somewhat modest sum.
I hope this gets resolved without anymore mishaps. Bankruptcy or jail♀️♀️♀️♀️
Where did the 28 million come from? Why was that added to the card? I can understand the error cause obviously this was a manuel refund error of the $100,000 but added the 28 million as a amount due does not make since. I don’t get it why this hard to fix. Reverse the 28 million and take back $99,000. All fix.
Seriously, Gary, this is a fascinating and entertaining story. Thanks. Please fill in with more details on how the $28M showed up and how it eventually gets resolved.
AA should give the guy some upgrades.
I’d have done nothing..let AA realize their mistake. I’ve learned that. Sometimes doing nothing is the right thing.
This so comical tho–‘who’s on first”.
Well … These are people at American that also manage the maintenance payments to those who keep their planes flying. Ring a bell?
The correct answer is “Do nothing” after AA “insisted the refund was processed correctly.”
I would’ve left the refund on the card for a couple months, and if no complaints or corrections, then asked American Express to cut a check, and then close the account after the check clears.
Put the money in a 5% CD for a year, and after that year, if no one comes looking for the money, the. do what you want with it.
At that point, you have to think of it as AA’s cost of doing business. They spend 10x on the CEOs expense account. For them to lose 100k is like middle class person losing $100. Not a big deal. They just write it off on there corp taxes.