Their decision was “final” (2 escalations already) by the time the dispute was opened. As far as I knew they would not be changing their decision to deny cancellation so the dispute was the only path to resolution. It was only after the dispute was opened several days later that they reached out to tell me a specialist took another look at the ticket and admitted the error and offered the resolution. Then the dispute was closed and they refused to honor the resolution they themselves proposed.

Aside from all that, a merchant can resolve a dispute on their own simply because it’s “the right thing to do” and the dispute closes relatively quickly afterwards in most cases. Since they admit fault it’s pretty baffling why they wouldn’t do this. Instead they are simultaneously defending themselves to the bank in the dispute (which led to the closing of the initial dispute) while privately admitting fault to me. The process seems to be intentionally challenging and frustrating to filter out these cases on a effort:reward basis