Consumer complaint received 2023-06-13
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: NY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Other problem

Complaint:
NOTE FOR CFPB : Please reopen this complaint since the company refused to answer last time because my wife was not the account holder ( see XXXX ). 
COMPLAINT : I am writing to complain because I was wrongfully charged for a hotel reservation made through Amex XXXX that I canceled within the cancellation period but was not processed appropriately and in a timely manner by AMEX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX AmEx  ). On XX/XX/22 I booked a reservation at the cost of XXXX} via XXXX that could be canceled for a full refund before XX/XX/22 XXXXXXXX XXXX  On this day, I called AmEx XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX  to confirm if my booking was eligible for a promotion called " XXXX Hotel Credit '' and explicitly told the agent that if this was not the case, I wanted to cancel. This was a simple, straightforward issue yet the first agent we spoke to ( a woman ) was so unhelpful and mean-spirited that she unnecessarily caused delays in answering this simple question for over XXXX minutes, and ultimately maliciously transferred my call away from the XXXX group, which in turn led to more delays and the next agent had to transfer my call back to the XXXX group ( which I correctly called initially ). This series of mistakes made by the agents, especially the first XXXX, pushed the reservation past the cancellation deadline by mere minutes, through no fault of my own. 
There are at least XXXX independent reasons why a response of anything less than a full refund by AmEx is inappropriate : ( 1 ) AmEx was a gatekeeper and booking agent, who had sole power to answer whether the statement credit applied. I called AmEx before the cancellation deadline with sufficient time to clarify my question and cancel, which AmEx squandered. Therefore, AmEx undeniably bears the responsibility here. ( 2 ) AmExs delay was due to AmEx customer support ineffectiveness. There were clear problems with the staff ( a ) understanding my issue, ( b ) demonstrating empathy and the sense of customer service excellence I expect from Amex, ( c ) understanding the special urgency here, and ( d ) responding to the issue in a timely manner. Worse, there was no supervisor available when asked, meaning that AmEx failed to have any contingency in place to address those predictable problems with XXXX XXXX ( apparently ) XXXX  support. ( 3 ) The third and final customer support representative clearly, on the recorded line, responded in a way that reassured me that AmEx would compensate or reverse any charges because I called prior to the reservation cutoff. 
Despite multiple attempts to resolve this directly with XXXX XXXX at AmEx Service Excellence, she shirked responsibility for this issue and refused to provide a full refund. To add insult to injury, she originally offered a XXXX statement credit, but I only received XXXX Finally, I repeatedly requested a call from the XXXX XXXX team to discuss canceling my XXXX card and that request also went unanswered.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief