How to Cancel an AA Award Flight & Ensure Getting Your Miles Back

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One advantage of booking a flight with points instead of paying for it is that award bookings often have more favorable cancellation policies. While you might get a flight credit if you cancel a revenue flight, you’ll often get all your points back if you need to cancel an award flight. Even better is that many airlines have eliminated charging a cancellation fee, so canceling an award flight won’t cost you anything.

American Airlines’ policy is that you can cancel your trip up until your flight time. While American Airlines has allowed you to cancel flights online or with their app for several years, the re-depositing of your points often required a call to the airline.

Automatic Re-depositing of Award Points

Live and Let’s Fly noticed a change in AA’s wording about re-depositing points for canceled award tickets.

You can cancel your award ticket anytime on aa.com. We will reinstate your AAdvantage® miles up to 1 year after the ticket issue date as long as you cancel your ticket before the first flight departs. If you cancel your trip on aa.com, your miles will be reinstated automatically in many cases.

When American Airlines kept delaying my flight home from Las Vegas, I eventually gave up and purchased a flight on Spirit instead. I canceled my first-class award ticket while sitting at the Las Vegas Centurion Lounge. I received an email confirming the cancellation.

Your trip was booked with AAdvantage^® miles. We’ll reinstate those miles automatically.

But American didn’t reinstate the miles automatically

I gave it a few days and kept checking my account. The miles for my award ticket weren’t reinstated. However, I did receive a refund to my credit card for the taxes I paid for the ticket. This means I’d have to call American Airlines.

I called the number from the website because I don’t trust Siri to find the correct number for American Airlines. The recording informed me that the approximate wait time to talk with a representative was 2 hours. I took the option to leave my phone number and name and receive a call from them when it was my turn.

It took about 2 and a half hours to receive a call. At the time, I was driving and the call dropped before I could speak to anyone. I thought that I had missed my only chance and would have to call back, but I received another call 10 minutes later. This time, I was able to speak with someone.

At first she thought I wanted to make a reservation, but I explained that I canceled a flight and didn’t get my miles back. She asked for my ticket number, and I said that I had it when I called 3 hours ago but now I was driving and couldn’t get it. With my travel date and destination, she found my ticket and noted that it was canceled. She put me on hold for a bit and then came back to say that my miles should be……..

And then the call dropped.

I was waiting for a callback or maybe an email confirmation, but nothing happened. Two days later, the miles were reinstated.

Final Thought

Even though American Airlines says that your miles will be reinstated, it’s up to you to check to make sure that they are. Since AA doesn’t allow third-party services, like AwardWallet, to track your account, you must log into the website or check the app to see your balance.

Keep all your emails for the reservation, including the one confirming you canceled the flight until the miles are back in your account.

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary