FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - China Visa / Visas Master Thread (all you need to know)
Old Sep 22, 2018, 1:55 pm
  #1769  
jiejie
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Southeast USA
Programs: various
Posts: 6,710
Originally Posted by jeffeverde
While researching things to see in China, I came across a travel blog that claimed that in the US, it is possible to submit a visa application for China, online. The blog said that the link is not well known and that in a Google search it gets lost in all links for paid visa expediting services. I know that the website for the Chinese embassy in Canada allows online application submission, and I *think* I remember clicking a link on this blog that took me to an online application page on the US site. But now I can't find the page on the Chinese embassy site or the blog.

Does anyone know about this? I'm trying to avoid an extra drive into L.A. if I can avoid it.
I think you may have misconstrued some things. First of all, I have not heard of ordinary Canadians using ordinary passports to use any method other than standard paper application, submitted now via the China Visa Application Centres (or alternate agents). The only online visa application facility that I know of for Canadians is for Official Passports/Official business only. So, at this time I don't think Canadian applicants have any special access to different or easier methods than do US ones. But if there are any of you Canadians out there that have been able to get a visa using online method, please out yourselves and confirm.

Second, I believe I have also seen a travel blog (sorry, name/link escapes me) that made this claim of online Chinese visa application for US citizens. I remember that the company referenced was www.ivisa.com because the blog claim piqued my interest and I visited the ivisa site to take a look. I found it to be baloney. The company has you fill out an application form online and send it to them, then they look it over, pdf it, and FedEx it to you for your signature and return to them. Then they get it to the Chinese Consulate and have it processed. In other words, the same thing that you could do yourself. Moreover, a look at the business address of the ivisa company shows it as somebody's apartment in South Florida....nowhere close to a Chinese Consulate. I found the entire thing sketchy, and this is the only company I've seen that makes a claim that "online" application is possible for Chinese visas. Well, I guess if that's how you define online processing. But again, if anybody has found an alternative method for online application that somebody claims to have worked, I'm open to being educated.

I know of no nationality that is able to obtain a Chinese visa through online processing as most of us define the term, at least not for ordinary citizens using standard passports.

Last edited by jiejie; Sep 22, 2018 at 2:01 pm
jiejie is offline