Originally Posted by
C17PSGR
Well ... China certainly has representatives in IATA ... and if they wanted clearer language, they would give it IATA.
What the Chinese think of the language.. China is the one country where its agents are not burdened with a divergent view of what a third country means in the context of a ticket.
Rather, it is numerous other countries, including the US, where local airline representatives read the terms differently. Specifically, they see the return segments of CHINA-JAPAN-US as returning to the country of origin, e.g., the US, not a transit to a third country, e.g. JAPAN because the stop in JAPAN is ticketed as a connection, not a stopover. That is correct as an IATA ticketing convention, but immaterial to the Chinese view of what transit to a third country means.
The pressure to make the language crystal clear must come from carrier representatives in countries other than China which have service to China which is TWOV-eligible.