Originally Posted by
plunet
My experience with the short codes is that they are "mastered" in one particular city, so to call them from overseas you just need to which city it is and give that area code between your 86 and the short code. Unfortunately not all companies using a make it obvious which city it is.
Eg. For a short code 12345
+86 10 12345 if mastered in Beijing
+86 20 12345 if mastered in Guangzhou
+86 21 12345 if mastered in Shanghai
+86 27 12345 if mastered in Wuhan
etc.
I alluded to this a few posts up. IME, +86 10 works in most cases, even if the actual call center is somewhere else. If that fails, +86 21 is the next most common prepend.