Originally Posted by
LHR/MEL/Europe FF
Friends of ours were incorrectly permitted boarding by CX for a HKG-PVG-HKG itinerary. (The full intended itinerary was LAX-HKG-PVG-HKG-LAX.)
On arrival at PVG they were offered a choice - either straight back to HKG, or arrange onward flights to the USA and enter under 72 hour TWOV.
They chose to enter China and CX as inbound carrier was told to help them to organise tickets - which they did, on AA metal, but at full one-way 'walk-up' prices.
They considered themselves lucky. This was a faailure on their behalf, but also on CX's.
I flew a few days later ex HKG to PVG also on TWOV. The CX check-in took an extra long time processing the boarding pass and approving the itinerary - no doubt some 'reminder' had been issued to check-in!
1. I'm guessing it's safe to assume that your friends failed to advise you of their ill fated plan in advance
2. If I had been in their shoes, I would have pressed CX/KA to delete the PVG-HKG segment from my itinerary (while keeping HKG-LAX in tact) in order to fly PVG-MFM instead (dirt cheap on 9C); normally airlines don't tinker with tickets in this manner, but when they are on the hot seat, things are different
3. I am guessing that CX/KA agents make mistakes of this nature on a regular basis (with ~10k passengers/day, such is inevitable... nobody is perfect)