As the big businesses of the world process my refunds, the cards I paid with start to see the benefit.

My American Express Platinum card (that’s the one that gave me 30,000 Avios, free non-cancer travel insurance and airport lounge access, for £37.50 a month) needed me to clean out the Reward Points in the account before the refunds hit.  Mainly because they’d have triggered a cancelling of over 30,000 points.

So I utilised the points for hotel rooms yet to be booked yesterday.  Nick of time.  Today Hotels.com have put my Amex Platinum in credit.  They’ve also put my Halifax Clarity card in credit too.  As it stands I’ve hot about £1,400 to spend and nothing to spend it on!  Irritatingly, these two cards are ones I rarely use.  And I want to cancel the AMEX card as lounge access and travel insurance isn’t exactly beneficial right now!

With the exception of QANTAS, the airline industry is notoriously slow at refunding customers their money.  Aer Lingus took two months giving me my money back after cancelling a flight last year.  Qatar and Finnair aren’t off the starting blocks yet.  At least Qatar have told me my refund entitlement.  The Finns haven’t bothered acknowledging my claim.

And the Avis.  I’d forgotten about Avis until this morning.  A three day car hire out of Cairns Airport to see crocodile, rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.  Cancelled this morning.  I’ll check if I’ve paid them anything up front.  That’ll be another amount to bump up the positive credit card balance with.

Keeping track is quite a challenge!

Reconciling The Refunds