Originally Posted by
ijgordon
But CX cancelled his flight. There was no flight to make. A refund is definitely owed, but the trickier part may be restoring the return segment (there's no reason for them not to do it though unless they're just being jerks -- again, they cancelled the flight), and them potentially calculating the refund as the round-trip fare paid less the one-way fare, which might even be negative! But certainly OP should be entitled to cancel/refund the entire CX itinerary if he so chooses, and then just buy a new ticket back from SYD to PVG.
They cancelled that particular flight, but there were other flights to be re-accommodated on. I agree with everything you're saying in principle, that had the OP asked CX to cancel and refund the ticket they should have done, but in just buying another ticket and disappearing they effectively became a no-show and CX have no obligation to refund them. They may choose to do so out of goodwill, but that's all imo.