The commission is paid by the airline to the travel agent. Not by the consumer.

If the airline didn't pay the commission, that's between the agent and the airline.

Just a wild ass guess but I am thinking the TA lost their commission from the airline when you cancelled and they are extracting it from your funds. As stated, read the contract.

I have to use a corporate travel agent for all business travel. Domestic travel is booked onlie, but international travel requires talking to an agent.

The Agent makes sure you have the appropriate managerial approval for the trip, and takes care of flights, hotels, rental cars, and other things. They know the policies like when you can fly business class. Usually that are decent. For a while I was traveling so much that I knew the agents by voice and who was good and who wasn't as good and would sometimes disconnect if I got one of the lesser ones. They all can do the job but I am rather systematic about how I check routes and times/dates to find the best combination of price and itinerary.

We have corporate rates with United and Delta, as well as various hotels in places the company has business, which the travel agent ensures we get. And when the Agents book local carriers in other countries usually we get a relatively unrestricted ticket that can be changed easily. Usually I'm looking at a flight aggregator website and telling the agent what flights I want, especially on local carriers.

But for personal travel I book directly with airlines (and directly with hotels), and make I sure know the booking code and understand the fare class and rules. On one one or two occasions I used Trip.com in Asia for a companion's tickets. No Orbitz, no Travelocity, and certainly no Priceline. I have not seen any better prices with any of these and often they often stick you in the more restricted fare classes.

I will admit traveling professionally teaches you a lot about booking codes, fare classes, alliances between airlines, and a lot of other stuff, like when you should book local carriers as part of your international ticket and when to book directly with them. It's all about ensuring the most flexibility when things go wrong. And with international travel, things will go wrong now and then.

Turns out nothing was actually signed with the travel agent but not sure if anything is binding as a result of purchase. Dispute was filed for the amount that was not refunded and Chase said they would credit my account regardless of the outcome of the dispute. We'll see how that goes.

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions.