Originally Posted by mafan812

I had a September ticket too. I called Hainan in August and the CSR recommended I wait until I received the flight cancellation notice. Basically, all the flights are getting cancelled. If you self cancel, you have less favorable options.
Once they cancelled, I called them and asked for a refund. They offered to rebook at no fee, but I had to travel within 1 year of the original purchase. That meant I would have to fly by October -- not going to happen. The refund process was over the phone and relatively painless. The CSR's English was decent, better than my Mandarin. I received the refund within a couple weeks, even though they told me it would take a month.
The funny thing is they are disorganized. A separate department kept calling me at night to handle the cancellation, but that CSR only spoke Mandarin. Luckily, I had a native speaker nearby. It seems like online ticketing and phone ticketing are totally separate.
Anyway, I give them high marks for customer service. I was expecting this to be a painful experience and it was quite the opposite.