I’m considering closing x1 current account & x1 credit card as part of a financial reshuffle.
I paid for home & car insurance via these associated cards respectively - and sometimes refunds are processed when you change circumstances etc, perhaps something I bought will be returned under warranty…
Anyway - I’m sure this also happens with CASS’ as the card isn’t covered - so what are peoples experiences with this?
Do they try the refund to the card and contact you when it doesn’t work? Send a cheque?
It’s a pain in the arse. In theory they should return any refunds received automatically to the account which switched in to.
Most likely you will need to chase customer service (so keep a note of your bank account and telephone banking details to get you through the automated systems - although also be prepared for these not to work). In some cases the refund process doesn’t work and you have to go back to the merchant (who will probably claim they issued a refund on x, but will need to check on their underlying systems to see the refund didn’t work).
If you can get any refunds sent to you as a cheque that’ll save yourself considerable bother.
Credit cards are usually fine in my experience. I’ve had 2 year old transactions refund on to Amexs and it’s been fairly easy to get a credit refund.
Amex is in general pretty good customer service wise. A little tip with Amex is to get them to send credit refunds as a cheque because they have a habit of demanding statements uploaded to prove your bank account details which is a lot more of a faff than just doing mobile cheque deposit (so long as it’s under £500/£1000).
Both actually. It’s all the same. Amex won’t proactively contact you but your login credentials continue to work so you can see online there is a credit.
Live chat and ask for a refund of your credit balance. They might ask you which original transaction the refund related to etc… standard AML stuff.
Three examples off the top of my head:
Refund for a hotel booking during the pandemic - on a credit card I don’t usually use but had a Hilton offer on there at the time of booking. Refund left a negative balance (on an open credit card). Contacted Amex by Live Chat, they asked for proof of bank account and the refund dropped in there a couple of weeks later.
Lenovo agreed to refund me for a 3.5 year old laptop which they couldn’t repair (had purchased extended support) - bit of a result actually, but the refund dropped on to an Amex card I’d closed 18 months previously. Can still see the card in my Amex online account, and saw the refund on there in typical quick Amex fashion. Contacted via Live Chat, asked for a credit refund. They wanted to know about the circumstances of the refund, and asked when it was originally purchased. I had to go back through old statements and pull out the exact date of the transaction (presumably so they could see I wasn’t using the defunct card as some sort of mule). Once that was in, they asked for proof of bank account and the payment dropped in a couple of weeks later.
When I cancelled my BA card I was credited back the annual fee (pro-rata’d). Quick live chat later, this time asking specifically for a cheque and it was all done. Cheque arrived in the post about 2 weeks later.
