Originally Posted by ryman554

It's highly unlikely that anyone, on a XXX-TYO-PEK-XXX with a "stopover" in TYO and "final destination" as PEK would re-transit Japan on the way back to XXX. Never happens in any of the itineraries that United or ITA throw at me when I go looking for SFO-TYO flights and need a third country to make the thing cheaper. So, it most likely will allow a TWOV.

Not that the original suggestion of waiting a few hours is for that -- it's for the awful connection logistics. Nor would I ever suggest doing a TWOV with only a "few hours" layover. A couple of days, sure. But not a couple of hours.