Thread: Soooo, new Chinese visa requirements?

Maybe I can find out more from some of the crew. We're going back tomorrow via SEA.

Good luck this time!

Originally Posted by spongebue

Personally, I wouldn't want to mess with the Chinese government

I know what you are saying and agree.
I just wonder how they could tell.
We have a paper ticket agreement with Korean, so we would actually have a ticket in hand and with immigration processing so many people, do they really have time to scrutinize every person?

I came thru this morning and it wasn;t very busy. They had 4 agents working and each spent a fair amount of time reading the paperwork. I could see the paper zed might work. There was no one at the transit visa desk. No one on the crew had anyone travel on the 72 hr deal. I'dbe more concerned about getting out of the States.

Well.....we did it!

As for getting out of the US, it is true, you MUST have a confirmed ticket. The gate agent even phoned UA to verify ours was not a fake. She said she had turned aways many nonrevs for not having a confirmed ticket. The agent in DAY did not even want to let us board, so I had to really fight to even get to DTW.
Once we were all on the same page, everything else went smoothly. Flew DTW-PEK in biz class and enjoyed our 72 hours visiting all the usual sites.
Flew Air China to ICN on award miles from UA.
Spent 2 days in ICN and then flew back to DTW in biz class again.
First time on the 777 pods and I think I like the 767-400 seats better...

We look forward to going back to China and Korea again soon!

That is awesome! Glad to hear you guys were able to pull it off! How was customs in China?

Also, I'm not surprised that the airline staff were difficult to work with. We're taught pretty quickly about the fines that the airlines can incur by the rejecting countries (I think usually ~$5,000USD) if we send somebody that shouldn't be allowed into the country. If that happens, and the airline finds out who allowed them to go, it probably won't be a pleasant experience

Originally Posted by spongebue

That is awesome! Glad to hear you guys were able to pull it off! How was customs in China?

Also, I'm not surprised that the airline staff were difficult to work with. We're taught pretty quickly about the fines that the airlines can incur by the rejecting countries (I think usually ~$5,000USD) if we send somebody that shouldn't be allowed into the country. If that happens, and the airline finds out who allowed them to go, it probably won't be a pleasant experience

China customs was a breeze!

Originally Posted by 29palms

Confirmed ticket to go to China? Wow. That really blows. I guess I won't be doing China anytime soon. My question is, did you buy a discounted fair from UAL or use miles or just plain buy a ticket? If you bought the discounted fair, what did the round trip run?

I used miles for us.

10,000 each for PEK-ICN but if you had to buy a ticket, I saw them for as low as $180 on China Southern