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Advice if possible please. What happens when an Amex refund is paid to a card that has already been cancelled? Many thanks in advance.
You’ll eventually get a statement showing the refund (or if you leave the card attached to your account you can see it online). You’ll need to contact Amex and arrange to have the money returned to you by cheque or bank transfer. You don’t get penalised for any points or offers you benefited from by making the original spend.
Perfect, thank you very much indeed.
I wouldn’t wait to receive a physical account statement and Amex accounts that are closed fall off the online statements in my experience, even if you don’t delete them. Just ask online chat to see if the refund has hit and they will also be able arrange to issue you a cheque or pay it to your account.
As long as you don’t remove the card from the account it’s attached to, you’ll still be able to see your balance so you’ll know when the refund hits.
I couldn’t be bothered to call or chat to Amex. After 4 months they refunded me to the account from which I had had a direct debit set up, and sent me a letter in the post saying they had done so.
From my experience, they will only do that for sums under a certain amount (possibly £500 but I can’t remember). But at a certain figure they ask for documentary evidence and again I can’t remember whether that’s just ID or to prove that you’re the account holder for the DD account.
I find getting the refund transferred to a current account works most effectively and without any hassle via online chat.
NorthernLass is correct. Anything over £500 and you either need to prove your identity for a Bacs transfer or you request to be sent a cheque. Under £500 and they will simply Bacs it straight to you. As others have mentioned, chat works well for this.
That used to be the case. However, the last refund I had, which was around £90, they wanted to see banking documents, which I find to be a right pain, so I asked for a cheque.
Had two agents take over half an hour to process refunds earlier this year. Fortunately, my latest request was processed in just a few minutes just like the old days. Like Anna, I keep all my cancelled cards on the account, just a quick cluck on each card in the app shows if a credit balance is avaliable.
Seems to vary how much they will refund without documentation now. I had to get a refund of just over £200 a couple of weeks ago and I had to upload banking documents for that. Annoyingly as the £200 was made up of two refunds they asked for two bank statements covering each payment I’d made to cover each purchase relating to each refund. Wasn’t just proving my identity generally with statements.
I did one over the phone about 10 days ago and they asked for the new card details and refunded it to there.
Hi everyone,
I’m reopening this thread as I have a refund issue with British Airways that has been ongoing for some time.
A year and a half ago, BA refunded the cost of some cancelled flights to a closed Amex card. I immediately contacted BA, and after several calls, they provided me with an ARN (Airline Reference Number) and assured me that the funds were sent to Amex.
However, when I contacted Amex, they informed me that they couldn’t trace the funds or access any record of the closed card. They suggested that I ask BA to recall the refund and send it to a different card or account.
Despite my efforts, BA continues to insist that they refunded the money, ignoring my concerns about the closed account. I’m at a loss for how to proceed. I was considering options like CEDR, MCOL , but now I’m wondering if this might be a case for the Ombudsman.
Any advice on what to do next?
@Princess – in a case like this where it’s difficult to identify the responsible party, I would be inclined to make a s75 claim which you are entitled to do even on a closed credit card. This should oblige both parties to take the matter seriously far more quickly and simply than any of the other routes you suggest. You mention the (Financial) Ombudsman, but that’s problematic as you don’t know if Amex is responsible. You need to write a hard copy letter to Amex setting out a chronology of events and the evidence you have of your entitlement to a refund. Ask them to do a chargeback (which they will likely refuse) failing which you wish to make a s75 claim. You need to be very firm with them since as the customer, you can’t access the relevant data, but they can, it’s irrelevant your account is closed and they are obliged to keep all the data for six years and the Consumer Duty requires them to assist. Copy the letter to the BA legal department, again in hard copy with a suitable cover letter.
Hi JDB, thank you for your suggestion. It seems clear what to do (I hope I will manage it!!!)
I will follow this route then.So far as I understand it, the required practice in the finance industry is that it is for the sender to prove they made a payment and its routing (eg BACS or Swift) and not for the receiving end to have to prove they didn’t receive.
Therefore I’d send BA a signed-for letter as prime responsible, demanding payment within, say, 21 days.
Failing which, you’ll open proceedings agsinst them for non-payment for the sum owed plus an amount equivalent to bank interest in light of the time during which this money has not been received, plus all costs.You can email them a copy marked as Sent by Post for which Signature required on delivery, provide them an alternative payment method. You can also pursue s75 for services paid not received. I’d do both, and cc the cardco too.
@LadyLondon – per the OP, BA has already made its position clear, so there seems little point in writing to them again. The purpose of starting the s75 is to make Amex negotiate with BA which they will do to avoid the joint and several liability falling on them and if Amex refuses to make or denies the claim, one can go to the Ombudsman.
I would take a lot of other steps before issuing proceedings. People are quite casual about encouraging others to go to MCOL when that process requires you to pay a fee, properly understand the procedures and doing this against two defendants is actually quite messy. There are currently also serious delays.
It is possible that issuing proceedings would bring BA to the table quite quickly but so should s75 which is free, simple and forces Amex to do the work for you.
@LadyLondon and @JDB both your suggestions are incredibly valuable to me. I believe BA made the payment because my husband’s flight which was bought using a different card has been refunded as they claim.
I think is a genuine problem of money ending in a limbo that neither Amex or BA want to investigate@Princess, I had a similar issue with easyJet at the end of the pandemic. Because the flights had been cancelled and rebooked 3 times by then, the original payment card had been closed about 18 months previously and I discovered eventually that Amex will bounce back refunds beyond a certain date. EJ kept asking for more & more proof that they still had the money, and kept changing the goalposts on what proof was required, until I’d had enough and filed a claim against them via ADR. This was an extremely quick and efficient process and took about 8 weeks from start to finish. EJ didn’t contest and just paid up, but my god it was like pulling teeth up to that point!
I will let you know how it will end! Thanks everyone for all the precious advice….as usual invaluable!!!!
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