Consumer complaint received 2024-12-02 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement — Card was charged for something you did not purchase with the card
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: VA

Complaint narrative:
Bottom Line Up Front : I booked travel with Amex points and cancelled the travel within guidelines. Instead of refunding my points, Amex charged me for them ( unauthorized ) and can not figure out how to reverse the charge despite admitting the error. 

On XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX at XXXXXXXX XXXX ET I booked travel through American Express using XXXX Amex points to cover the air fare. On XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX  at XXXXXXXX XXXX  ET I called Amex Travel to cancel the ticket within the 24-hour window. Initially the agent gave me a hard time about voiding the ticket, but eventually agreed to void the ticket and told me it had been done and that points would be returned to my account. 

When I went to book a new ticket on XX/XX/XXXX, my points had still not been returned and were unavailable for using on the new ticket. This forced me to purchase the new ticket using cash I had not budgeted. 

I placed two more calls with Amex ( XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX ) before the points were returned to my account. However, instead of simply returning my points Amex charged me for the points as a purchase for the amount of {$530.00}. 

On top of the ticket, which I had planned to purchase with points, this now placed an additional financial burden on my account that was unauthorized. 

I have subsequently spoken with Amex an additional three times since this error : XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, and XX/XX/XXXX. The {$530.00} is still on my account and starting to accrue interest charges every cycle, as I refuse to pay it. Amex has removed the interest charges but can not seem to figure out how to refund me the monetary value of the points refund. 

Including the time on the phone and writing this complaint, I have now spent 8 hours of my time or the equivalent of a standard work day on this topic. Amex has now opened three investigations on this topic. The last one to investigate the previous one, on which there had been no action by the time I had called again. 

The first investigation was opened by an Amex service member without notifying me and falsely claimed that : a ) I had not cancelled my ticket within the 24-hour window and b ) they had sent travel voucher for the amount of the travel Neither of which are true. I have my phone and email records to show that the ticket was cancelled in the 24-hour window and a travel voucher was never sent. The travel was on XXXX XXXX, which also does not log a travel credit, nor does a travel credit appear in the appropriate Amex account. 

Despite multiple service members admitting the fault on Amexs part, no one can figure out how to refund the value of the points. Every time I call, Amex bounces me between different departments, none of which appear to have the power to fix the problem. Since nobody at Amex appears to take responsibility for the fault, no one is held accountable or motivated to fix the problem. Instead, Amex will chase its own tail opening investigations on previous investigations.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief