Consumer complaint received 2023-07-07
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: NY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX my family purchased XXXX tickets from XXXX to XXXX XXXX for a total of {$5900.00}. 

In XX/XX/XXXX we called the airline, XXXX XXXX, to cancel one of the tickets for our XXXX daughter who we were no longer bringing on our trip to XXXX. We were told we would be issued the refund onto our credit card within XXXX days. 

By XX/XX/XXXX we did not receive the refund and we spoke to a representative at XXXX XXXX who told us that on his end the refund was issued, and since we did not receive the refund we should contact our bank. 

Following this representatives advice, we contacted American Express and they confirmed that we did not receive the refund. They let us know they would be disputing the charge of the single ticket, {$980.00} less the cancelation fees. 

However, American Express mistakenly proceeded to dispute ALL of the tickets from the reservation. We immediately called back and let them know that they made this error. The representative at American Express told me not to worry and that there was a note that only the single ticket would be disputed despite the entire charge showing the dispute. 

When this representative told us not to worry, we believed him. You can imagine our surprise, then, when the night before our trip ( departure date XX/XX/XXXX ) we used the XXXXXXXX XXXX mobile app to check-in our family of XXXX and saw that none of our tickets were in the system. We planned this trip for a full year and had XXXX family members coming to XXXX for a celebration. You could imagine the level of panic we faced when we no longer had our tickets the night before our departure as a result of this significant error. 

In other words, the potential issue I had communicated to American Express in XXXX of XXXX that I was told I did NOT need to worry about DID HAPPEN. 

We had no choice but to rebook our XXXX tickets on the very same flights the night before ( XX/XX/XXXX ) with a much higher fee for a total of {$11000.00}. We also lost all of our seats, and my young children were scattered all over the plane because we were limited to whatever was available. 

Rather than costing {$980.00} per ticket as was on our original booking, the new charge per ticket as {$2200.00} more than double. 

We called American Express multiple times to resolve this issue. Each time, the representative told us they would look into it and get back to us. Each time, we were promised we would hear from a supervisor within 24 hours. However, it took over two months and many, many phone calls for someone to finally listen to the recordings from XXXX when we disputed the charge and then explained we were afraid of all of our tickets getting canceled. 

One agent then called us to tell us the very best American Express can do is issue us a {$250.00} credit and XXXX miles ( {$250.00} monetary value ). We were very shocked and upset. We asked how it could be that this mistake that cost us over {$6500.00} ( not to mention interest that we must pay since we needed to borrow money to pay this unexpected charge ) was being equated to {$250.00} and XXXX miles? 

We asked to speak with her supervisor. 

We spoke to XXXX with the agent number XXXX who told us that : 1. The {$250.00} was an arbitrary number that had no meaning but he guessed that it was based on the card annual fee. 
2. He did not listen to the recordings himself and he had little knowledge about the case. 
3. He would not allow us to speak to anybody else over the phone about this- neither a supervisor on his level nor anyone else above him. 
4. This type of thing could happen with disputing airline tickets ; however, nobody told us of this potential issue in XXXX when we would have either rebooked our tickets back then at the same lower price or canceled the dispute. 

We are waiting for American Express to refund us the difference of {$6500.00}. Please help us. 

It is very important for my family to receive this and it has become urgent for us. 

We can not continue to wait and we need these funds returned to us.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief