Cancelled flight - Who is liable travel agent or airline

Westin

Whilst I understand you are upset, I don’t think that your emotive email to Expedia is helpful.  I would have cut out much of the bluster and just kept to facts.  I’m not sure anyone at Expedia will take time, or dare I say care, about much written within.

It seems the airline cancelled your outbound flight four days before departure.  Typically this is an automated event with the airline making the cancellation, automatically sending information to passengers or agents, with options. These options typically being a refund or rerouting.  At this stage it is the airline offering their suggested rerouting options. Expedia would be relaying these.  

Being out of contact for a few days ‘may’ not of helped as the best alternatives may have been limiting.  This might be why only the longer transit option was left.  

When you did call Expedia and spoke to a ‘live’ person, this is when perhaps better options could be viewed, including looking at alternatives outside of what the original airline’s computer system might have generated. This might be on alternative carriers and different routing points.  There is however an issue that any alternative either has to be put to Hainan for approval and rebooking, or the passenger starts again, gets a refund from Hainan and pays again for a new set of flights. The outcome for doing, the helpfulness of the staff member, often depends on the approach on doing this. Might not be right but often will be the case.

Not taking a booked outbound flight, or a rebooked alternative, is likely to result in a cancellation of all following flights. Ticket rules on schedule carriers mean each flight segment needs to be taken and flown in order.  I suspect this the issue with the return being later cancelled.

Refunds from airlines can take a few weeks. Most work on a system (BSP) which sees payments made fortnightly between each other. You then need to factor in admin time at the airline and Expedia.

If original flights not taken, or booked alternative not taken up, then some airlines will make an automated refund.

I do hope you find resolution.  Not great that you are dealing with a Chinese based airline as this might make progress slow and desired outcome very difficult.  Expedia is very much a ticket arranger. They are not a full service travel agent. Dare I say your routing, airline choice and use of an online ticket seller, needs to factor in your expectations for service.There might be parts of this which you have to mark down as life experiences.