Merchant dispute with airline over changed itinerary
"Are you on Twitter? If so, the first thing I'd do is tweet this question to @Orbitz and/or @AmericanAir (AA). I'll edit it to be a bit nicer english-wise.  Tweeting (or Facebooking or Instgramming or ...) is one of the most effective ways to get customer service in 'edge' cases.  Explain your case in a nice, tight narrative that has the pertinent facts, why you should get an exception.  Social media tends to get results that you can't get just talking on the phone; in part because you're effectively talking with a higher-up person, and because you can make your case a bit more clearly. You can actually tweet this StackExchange question directly, or word it yourself in a tweet/FB post/etc.  On Twitter i'd link to here or somewhere else (too short), with something like ""@Orbitz @AmericanAir, you changed our trip and now it doesn't work with our special needs child.  Any way you can help us out? [link to this q or a blog post somewhere]"".   As far as a merchant dispute; it would realistically depend on the agreement you signed with Orbitz when you bought the tickets.  Likely it includes some flexibility for them to change your plans if the airline cancels the flight.  If it does, and they followed all of their policies correctly, then technically you shouldn't dispute the charge. It is possible that Chase might have some recourse on your behalf, though I don't think this qualifies for Trip Cancellation Insurance (Which you have through your Sapphire card ).  It might be worth calling them, just to see.  In the future, I would recommend booking through their site - not only do you get 25% bonus rewards when you use miles through there, which often is enough to offset the advantages of discount travel sites, but they're quite good at helping deal with these sorts of problems (as Sapphire is one of their top cards)."
You don't have to create a PayPal account in order to buy from a merchant that uses PayPal for processing their payments.  You can use your credit card just like with any other purchase. Creating a PayPal business account is, as you say, mainly for businesses wanting to accept payments, not make them.  PayPal doesn't require you, the customer, to have an account just to make a payment to a merchant.  We have dozens of customers a day make purchases through us using our PayPal account (we're small), and for them the main attraction to using PayPal to pay us is that PayPal has pretty good security and offers some very good customer protections against fraud.  They don't have to create a PayPal account just to pay us, though. When you create a PayPal business account, you link a bank account to it that they verify, then they issue you a PayPal MasterCard, which is a debit card that links to your PayPal account.  When you make purchases, if the funds are in your PayPal account (because, for instance, you're using PayPal as your merchant processor) then the payment is deducted from that.  If there's no money in your PayPal account then PayPal simply debits the bank account you linked with them, no differently than if you were to use your bank's debit card. In this instance, if you don't plan to use PayPal for merchant processing then there's no real reason to open a business account.  It doesn't have any advantages over your bank's debit card and, IMHO, just adds another layer of complexity and paperwork to your accounting for no identifiable benefit. I hope this helps. Good luck! That is very true.  I should have used the qualifier that they basically only do domestic travel.  I have never tried to red-eye with them, but I guess they don't do it much, if at all.  However, if you have freedom, they are awesome due to their policies on:  * changing tickets (no fees, just fair difference and you keep the credit until you use it even when you buy the cheap fair),  * they don't fuck around with 24 hour cancellation policy (if you decide to cancel, no question/pressure, they just refund the money),   * [their rewards program is arguably the best if not one of the best](http://abcnews.go.com/Business/best-worst-frequent-flier-programs/story?id=13693563#.UIlyFK28FQI),  * they don't charge to check bags,   * **their boarding process get people on the plane in 15 mins instead of 30 or 45 mins** (my favorite part of SW after recently flying AA after like 10 consequitve SW flight),  * [they are the most on-time airline in the US](http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/18/americas-on-time-lifestyle-travel-tech-airlines-jet-blue-southwest.html),   * and they give away drink tickets like candy on halloween In older days the merchants and their merchant banks[or service providers] would take funds in their currency. Say in this case USD. When the charge hits the issuer bank, the merchant and merchant bank gets there USD and were happy. The user would get charged in local currency Shekel in this case. The rate applied by his bank [and card provider, Visa/Master also take a cut] is the standard shelf rate to individuals.   When business growing and banking becoming more sophisticated, lots of Merchant Banks and Merchants have created a new business, if you offer Shekel to all users then you have lots of Shekel that you can convert into USD. So in this model, the Merchant makes some more profit from Fx spread, the Merchant Bank makes good money in Fx. Your Bank [and card network] loose out. You stand to gain because you potentially get a better rate. All this theory is good. But the rates are moving and its quite difficult to find out if the rates offered directly by EI AI would be better than those offered by your bank. I have no experience in this example, but I have tried this with large shops, buy 2 items one charge in GBP and other in local currency around 2-3 times spread over a year. The difference in rate was close to identical, at times better or worse in range of .02% "As a rule of thumb, go in the order of proximity to the transaction. This would typically mean: Side note: I own a website that provides an online service that accepts PayPal and credit cards (via PayPal), and I personally have experience with all 3 of the above options. I can tell you from the merchant's point of view that I would also prefer the same order. I've had people contact my customer service department asking for a refund and we always immediately comply. Some people never contact us and just file a dispute directly with PayPal, and although refunding through the PayPal dispute is just as easy as refunding directly, it always makes me ask, ""Why didn't they just contact us first?"" One time we had a customer skip us and PayPal, and filed a dispute directly with their Credit Card. The CC company contacted PayPal and PayPal contacted us. The process was the same from my point of view, I just clicked a button saying issue refund. But my $5 refund cost me an additional $20 due to the CC dispute. Now that I know this I will never approve a CC dispute again. Anytime one happens I would just issue a refund directly, and then notify the dispute that their CC has already been refunded, which should end the dispute." "Executive summary: It sounds like the merchant just did an authorization then cancelled that authorization when you cancelled the order, so there was never an actual charge so you'll never see an actual refund and there's no money to ""claim"". More detail: From your second paragraph, it sounds like they just did an authorization but never posted the transaction. A credit card authorization is basically the merchant asking your credit card company ""Does sandi have enough credit to pay this amount and if so please reserve that amount for a bit."" The authorization will decrease the total credit you have available on the card, but it's not actually a charge, so if your billing cycle ends, it won't show up on your statement. Depending on which company issued your credit card, you may be able to see the authorization online, usually labelled something like ""Pending transactions"". Even if your credit card company doesn't show pending transactions, you'll see a decrease in your available credit, however you shouldn't see an increase in your balance. The next step, and the only way the original merchant gets paid, is for the merchant to actually post a transaction to your card. Then it becomes a real charge that will show up on your next credit card statement and you'll be expected to pay it (unless you dispute the charge, but that's a different issue). If the charge is for the same amount as the authorization, the authorization will go away (it's now been converted to an actual charge). If the amounts are different, or the merchant never posts a transaction, the authorization will be removed by your credit card company automatically after a certain amount of time. So it sounds like you placed the order, the merchant did an authorization to make sure you could pay for it and to reserve the money, but then you cancelled the order before the merchant could post the transaction, so you were never really charged for it. The merchant then cancelled the authorization (going by the start of your third paragraph). So there was never an actual transaction posted, you were never charged, and you never really owed any money. Your available credit went down for a bit, but now should be restored to what it was before you placed the order. You'll never see an actual refund reflected on your credit card statement because there was no actual transaction." "This is so true. There's always some ""misunderstanding"" at the end, when the quoted price isn't what is requested at the end. This type of thing is what has led me to stay in higher priced lodging and have them arrange my transport. I don't know if it has to be a meter, but somehow demonstrating that it will be a hassle free experience is super important." You're welcome, good questions on a confusing topic! Let me see if I can unpack it a bit, try to clear up the way accrual accounting jukes and jives...  &gt;  I buy an airline today. I get to recognize the revenue from any pre-sold tickets starting tomorrow and reduce my deferred revenue liability...  Hmm... Are you sure that's the case? Does purchasing the business somehow cause those future events to resolve?  I could be way off base here so let me know if I'm missing something, but whenever an airline ticket is purchased in advance, it's a balance sheet issue. Cash is increased and there is a liability created for Deferred Revenue. The revenue hits the income statement only when the flight takes place. As you noted, this would be accompanied with the usual trappings of costs and expenses, etc.  &gt;  However, I don't get that cash as it has already been paid to the previous owner.  Sure you do! Their bank account is now yours, right? I imagine that buying an airline company would be a matter of transferring ownership rather than to resolve any underlying uncertainty in the recognition of earnings, yeah?  As for valuation, it may depend on if you're looking at the income statement in isolation and relying on EPS or if you're using a more integrated approach with the balance sheet, which would bring these sorts of developments to light.  Does that help? Any part still clear as mud?  EDIT: words "The bank SHOULD be able to issue you a new card without letting vendors roll over the recurring payments. In fact, I've never had a bank move recurring payments to a new card automatically, or even upon request; they've always told me to contact the vendor and give them my new card number. So go back to the bank, tell them specifically that you have a security issue and you want the new card issued WITHOUT carrying over any recurring charges, and see if they can do it properly. If not: 1) Issue a ""charge back"" every time a bogus charge comes in. This costs the vendor money, and should convince them to stop trying to access your card. It's a hassle because you have to keep contacting the bank about the bad charges, but it won't cost you more than time and a phone call or letter.  (The bank can tell you what their preferred process is for this.) 2) Consider moving to a bank that isn't stupidly over-helpful."