Asiana had a schedule change from daily flights SYD-ICN-PEK to be every 2nd day from July 1.
Plan A we
were booked on for months had us arriving in PEK at 9.40 am and leaving to Mongolia on Air Chine at 8.35 am - just inside the 72 hours.
(i.e 71 hours)
All cool with that one.
Have a Mongolia VISA, and that seems to be a 'foreign country' for this 72 hour rule.
However with the Asiana connection gone, the only available to us routing to Beijing from SYD later this week has us
arriving in PEK a few hours earlier at 5.30am than the Asian flight did .. .the Mongolia flight remains the same departing at 8.35 am ... so that departs ~75 hours later, missing the 72 hours strictly.
If we arrive at PEK at 5.50am and kill time at a lounge or coffee shop airside etc for a few hours, and then pass customs at say 9am does that comply?
i.e. does the 72 hour clock start ticking from the hour you have your passport stamped in PEK, or from when your plane arrives and outgoing plane departs?
Getting boarding passes from TG will be no issues I am sure from SYD-BKK-PEK, it is tryinb to comply strictly
with the CHINA policy is what I hope the experts here can assist with.
I stress we are not trying to break any China visa rules here in any way, and our first flights complied 100% fully, until Asiana pulled the rug a few days back on the daily SYD flights. We have prepaid day tours and hotel in Being, all non cancellable, and booked months back based on the original 71 hour transit that we had carefully chosen.
So yes flying out to Mongolia a full day earlier is the fall back option (giving us just over 48 hours there) but if we can avoid that by doing a few emails in a PEK lounge, before fronting at immigration counter, far better solution
Glen