Thursday evening I realized it had been a week since I had heard anything from Delta so I sent a quick follow up email.
Friday morning I received an email from Kathy Johnston at Delta apologizing for the delay and that the Passenger Refunds team had not received a response from United.
A few hours later I received this email from Ms. Johnston:
Thank you very much for your time and patience.
Our refunds team just advised me that the refund was processed last Monday, August 23. They retroactively applied your original award ticket to your travel from Newark to Denver. However, I am not going to remove the 20,000 miles I redeposited into your SkyMiles account. Due to all the problems you encountered, I will leave it in your account, along with the additional 10,000 miles, as a gesture of goodwill.
Credit card refunds are electronically processed to the original form of payment approximately 7 business days after handling. It may take up to two billing cycles for the credit to appear on your statement.
Again, we apologize for your inconveniences and hope you will provide us with a future opportunity to restore your confidence.
That’s right readers….I will not only be refunded the full amount I paid to United, but also will keep the miles Delta deposited into my account.
I have already thanked her in an email, but I would like to thank Kathy Johnston from Delta again for her assistance in hearing out my case and helping make this situation right.
Additionally…I would like to thank you, the readers of my blog and all my Twitter friends for reading, commenting and re-tweeting my blog posts! You all helped in making this happen.
Will I fly Delta again? Well, that remains to be seen (although I do have enough miles for another free flight). For now I will stick to Continental.
Notyourtypicalgirl's Blog 
Very happy for you Stef. almost $1,300 is absurd to pay period. Nevermind that it wasn’t even your fault!
Congratulations!
Word! Way to go Stef! Fight the man, battle the man, and then remember that the Yankees are “the man” (so stop rooting for them). The Pittsburgh Pirates-Kansas City Royals appreciate your cooperation.
I will NEVER stop rooting for the Yankees!
Glad it all worked out, finally! Being the squeeky wheel worked!
This is KICK ASS!!!! WOOT! Hey, keep those miles for that trip we’re discussing! 😉
That’s great, so happy you got a refund and the airmiles. Hopefully when you use them it’s will be smooth sailing lol or better yet smooth flying!
I’m glad you got a refund! I just wrote a post about how Singaporean airlines won’t even grant refunds!
Awesome end to a really crappy escapade. Good on you for making a stink about the whole thing.
How did you get them to respond? I’m going through about the same situation with Delta and the ” Refunds team” hasn’t responded at all.
They charged me $200 change fee plus $144 fare difference then due to mechanical problems caused me to miss a connection and could not offer me a seat for the last leg of the flight until 2 days later thus stranding me. I had to provide my own ground transport for the last leg.
I am so sorry that this happened to you. I tweeted about the situation and wrote the blog posts. That is how I got them to respond.