If what I experienced last night is now a systemwide change (or soon to be one), using American Airlines AAdvantage miles has just become so much easier. The ability to redeposit AA miles from canceled award trips without a phone call represents a huge step forward.
Finally! American Airlines Automatically Redeposits AAdvantage Miles When Bookings Are Cancelled Online
One thing I love about United Airlines is how easy it is to book, modify, and cancel flights…whether using cash or miles…on united.com or the United mobile app. If you book an award and cancel it, the miles are instantly deposited into your account.
For years, it has been a very different story with American Airlines and its AAdvtange program. With AA, you could cancel the award online, but would need to call in to have the miles redeposited into your account. If you did not do so within a year, the miles were forfeited.
That was a painfully arduous process and purely a technological limitation. Why couldn’t the miles be redeposited automatically if you cancel the flight? Why annoy customers and also tie up your call center staff with such a routine matter?
Well, I’m happy to report that it appears AA has finally figured out a way to automate this process. I just canceled an award yesterday and was pleased (and admittedly shocked) that the miles were redeposited immediately in the account:
Indeed, the pertinent language on the AAdvantage website has been updated to reflect this change:
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.
Note that while AA does not promise the reinstatement of points will necessarily be automatic, the system is now set up to automatically redeposit miles for trips canceled on aa.com.
That’s excellent news!
CONCLUSION
One reason I tend to shy away from using Avianca LifeMiles–even though pricing is often better than other programs–is because the website is so clunky and calling is not much better. AA has also been annoying in requiring a telephone call to redeposit miles. But now the process is automatic for most bookings on AA.com and that is a small but meaningful step toward creating a more consumer-friendly program.
How much time will you save now that American Airlines automatically redeposits miles?
image: American Airlines
Where have you been? This has always been the case!
Agree, it is been there for a long time
It hasn’t always been the case. Sometimes they will redeposit and sometimes they haven’t in the past 3 to 4 years. Many years ago it was automatic and then they changed the process in about 2020’ish and now, hopefully, it’s back to automatic.
Been doing this for well over a year…never needed to call. Not new.
Then why did I just need to call four weeks ago? I’ve cancelled so many awards and this was the first time I’ve ever seen the miles go back in automatically…
They go back in automatically 100% of the time for me over the past two years for maybe seven or eight tickets.
However if a partner awards such as Japan airline is returned you have to follow up in most cases and it takes a little while to get the miles back.
I never have had to get the miles back in the past two years that I’ve been flying as EP.
This is old news. This change occurred a year or two ago. Try actually flying an airline other than United once in a while.
Agree!!
This is not the case – I cancel award tickets all the time and have to call in.
Sorry, there is no way this has been widespread. I had to call in as little as four weeks ago.
In fact, I had to do it two weeks ago… canceled a SFO-JFK booked online and still had to call.
In the middle of an award trip today, returning tomorrow. Price dropped significantly when checking this morning. Called and was rebooked on a better itinerary for less miles. Agent did the whole thing in under 5 minutes and no fees.
Damn, for a minute there I thought I had to go back and recheck my account for past cancellations. After reading the posts…yes this has been automatic for over a year. My acct was credited each time automatically
Must have been something wrong with your account. Every one of us ot was automatic…. Sometimes it might take 48 to 72 hours or a little bit longer but it does go back in.
Could be. But I’m happy to experience it (finally) for myself.
This has been the case for me for awhile for me… but I have had two occasions where I had to call. However those were when I had to call to do something to the booking or make the booking (needed a routing where I couldn’t make the website cooperate). That might be the difference.
Is this article 2 years old and was just published by some time-travel error?
I definitely noticed this change a few months ago.
Also, the chat feature on the AA app is almost instant and they can redeposit miles straight away as well as book flights etc.
Lifemiles new subscription feature allows you to cancel without a fee now. I haven’t tried yet.
Still have to call in to cancel a Qantas award. It’s a somewhat time-consuming process involving the “Help Desk,” which has to contact Qantas.
Correction: You have to call in to have the miles from a cancelled Qantas award redeposited.
In all honesty, It’s been a couple of years since I had to call.
Automatic redeposit has been the case for year(s?) now, with a couple exceptions — tickets that are cancelled after check-in; not checked in award tickets cancelled within +/- 48 hours of departure time; and some partner awards. On the whole, 90% of my awards are automatically redeposited and 10% require call or chat. Don’t think anything’s changed
I realize I am but one traveler, but it really was the first time my points have ever been redeposited without having to call or message.
This has been widespread for me for at least a year or two. I cancel tickets all the time without issue. I would say in the last year, I’ve only had one or two where they didn’t refund correctly and I had to call in. I’m surprised to hear this hasn’t been the case for you.
I’ve never had a problem with instant deposit. U gave me a heart attack! Haha. I wonder if you were on a legacy system??? Altho I’ve had my acct since the us air days (not AW though).
I had to call in to get miles credited back after cancelling an award booked on Alaska.
My experience is almost mirror opposite. I have had no problems canceling AA award tickets with mostly immediate redeposit but UA is hit or (mostly) miss. I’ve needed to call or chat UA to redeposit on >50% of award tickets and in the same time period of roughly the past 2½ years, I’ve not once had to call or Twitter AA for redeposit and I’ve probably canceled in excess of 10 PNRs at each airline booked with miles.
Inconsistent passenger experiences on something that should be incredibly, almost mind-numbingly basic is very disappointing and a function of the poor U.S. airline industry.
Cancelled award bookings for travel solely on American metal redeposit automatically but often not instantly…may take a couple of hours or a couple of days. Any award booking involving travel on a Oneworld partner airline you still have to call to have the miles reinstated. Been that way for quite a long time nothing has changed.
I cancelled an award in January this year and still had to call to get it redeposited so I’m with you; this is definitely not a change that went live years ago.
This is not new. The only calls I’ve had to make for AA redeposits in recent years, are Qantas and Air Tahiti Nu. Perhaps also Hawaiian, although my memory is more sketchy on this.
Otherwise, all AA redeposits are automatic for me now, usually with 15 minutes. (AA, JAL, QR, BA, AY, Fiji, etc.)
As an AA Reservations Rep, I can attest that the “automatic” reinstatement of award miles has been in place for about a year, give or take., and the reinstatement will happen if it’s a wholly unused award ticket, and the itinerary is on AA/Eagle. Any partner awards, partially used tickets, and some unused international award tickets do require an agent to make the reinstatement happen.
In the past you had to call in if you cancelled close to departure, but re-deposits were automatic if you cancelled several days or more in advance.
I am with everyone. I have never had to call in for this. In fact, my card is also auto-refunded the 5.60-11.20 or international equivalent without going to prefunds. AA is the simplest when it comes to this.
Maybe they don’t like you as much… 🙂
Seriously, you should find out why your experience was different.
Its been like this for years for 95% of my cancellations. Gotta pay attention though for that 5% you need to call or chat on to get a refund.
Multiple references from late 2020 state “American Airlines has eliminated all award change and redeposit fees for both AA and partner flights”, a COVID thing which was made “permanent”.
Since 2020 I’ve flown ~40 AA award tickets, 30 domestic econ, 10 international biz with many of them rebooked and then cancelled at no fee. (My personal best in 2022 was 5 bookings of the exact same flight with 4 cancelations over 10 days going from 44,000 to 28,000 to 23,000 to 18,000 to 12,500 miles used.) 90% of the time miles are automatically redeposited within 3-5 minutes, fees refunded to credit card in 2-3 days. On those rare occasions when a glitch results in redeposit not being automatic (like a flight or hotel stay not automatically posting to a program) a call to AA results in miles being redeposited during the call.
CAUTION: If Allianz insurance is purchased, erroneously or otherwise, refund of insurance “premium” is more complicated. For the first time ever, I inadvertently purchased Allianz insurance for an award ticket 2 weeks ago. I booked it online while in a hurry, realized the mistake immediately, cancelled the ticket 3 minutes later, before it was confirmed. Miles redeposited several hours later, $11.20 refunded 2 days later, $27.00 Allianze separate credit card charge not refunded a week later. Called AA, was told twice I had to contact Allianz (despite my contention that AA sold the Allianz product and should therefore issue the refund).
Called Allianz number provided by AA, spoke with a clueless overseas call center rep who was completely unhelpful (being polite and generous). Called a Google searched Allianz #, pressed “buy insurance” option, spoke with someone in the Eastern USA who said I had probably been speaking with “Customer Service” and they can be less knowledgeable. He found my ticket in 2 minutes and issued the refund which appeared as “pending” on my credit card activity immediately. He said best number to call Allianz is 800-284-8300.
I think its automatic except for last minute cancelations (or maybe if you have already checked-in). That is the only pattern I can detect. With American, its always good to check, and if your miles were not automatically reinstated, you can make the request using the chat function in the app — no need to call.