I could have gotten my decades wrong. I just remember not being able to get refunds by default, and then it was a glorious past several years where JetBlue and southwest would automagically refund my tickets back to my credit card.
Not sure what "Default" means in this context. When American canceled flights in the 90s, you had to ask for a refund. If you didn't, they would give you a flight voucher or a ticket on the next scheduled flight. If you wanted a cash refund, you had to explicitly ask for it. I'm okay with that and often took the next available flight instead of the cash. But I don't know how much of that was AA policy and how much was required by law.
