Originally Posted by
mdkowals
Technically true, but YMMV. It can vary from vendor to vendor, credit card to credit card, and week to week. It's good to have both a card and balance on Alipay, but the balance has to come from someone with a Chinese bank account (for us either a co-worker or the hotel will do it).
I do have a Chinese bank account that I managed to open in Shenzhen pre-pandemic -- but I have lost access to the Chinese phone number that it's bound to. So I might be out of luck getting it re-activated.
Good call re. getting the hotel to top your Alipay balance up. Is this common practice?