Originally Posted by jiejie

1. Yes. Expedia is notoriously unhelpful when things go pear-shaped.
1a. Booking a short intl-to-intl connection at PEK. While 1.5 hours is officially within the MCT for T3 transfers, anybody here with expertise at the process could have told you that this was a very risky thing to do, given the potential for delays into PEK, bus gates, issuance of boarding cards, and other assorted whammies. Just because something is "legal" doesn't mean it's advisable to do. BTW, a 10 minute "late" arrival into PEK is essentially on-time, so I can see where Air China would dig their heels in on this point. Having that 10 minutes back wouldn't have made a material difference to you, given the normal process you have to go through to get to your US-bound flight.
2. No, not necessarily a problem to TWOV and we have an entire thread on this forum dedicated to this. But it has to be done properly and with forethought.
3. You had no choice. Your narrative mentions that you should have stayed at the transfer desk (I assume the one before the Immigration desks) until you were accommodated on another flight. That desk cannot do the reticketing, so Hell would have had to freeze over before you'd be accommodated there. With an obvious misconnect now in progress, you had no choice but to pass through Immigration as a TWOV passenger and go to front side of terminal/airline desks to get reaccommodated. AA had no choice but to pull your bags from their flight.
4. You never received a visa. You were on Transit Without Visa privileges. Since you and presumably your travel party were US citizens, you should have had a grace period of up to 72 hours, starting at midnight after you arrived. Even if it started as a 24 hour TWOV due to your expected alternate flight out, it can be extended---but you do need to have documentation from the airline and be proactive with Immigration about what's going on. Not sure if you went to wrong place, if airline didn't do their bit, or what. This is the first instance I have ever heard of this happening. Even in cases where nationality only allows 24 hours and there is a misconnect with additional time needed to catch a rebooked flight, I haven't heard of this sort of Immigration fine/punishment. Unless there is something else going on that has not been mentioned.
5. ? I'm not following this.

If Expedia issued this entire ticket on AA stock, which seems to be the case, then AA should have been responsible for figuring out the reaccommodation. Others here might be able to better advise you on what steps to take to get some compensation/reimbursement, and whether or not an additional step of filing a DOT complaint is warranted. You won't get any traction with the Chinese on getting back your RMB 1500, and I know of no mechanism for doing so. I doubt if there would be any long-standing repercussions on future Chinese visa applications. Finally, your long missive has a lot of sidebar observations that could be omitted when preparing to battle to get funds back. If you did not take out specific trip insurance that would cover this, then check with the terms of your Chase card directly---you shouldn't need us here to investigate this for you.

A bummer of an experience that has some very strange aspects. Certainly hundreds of people without Chinese visas misconnect at PEK every week and get through the rebooking, and TWOV process without this sort of drama or expense.