Originally Posted by
moondog
If you do that more than two times, you'll end up spending more (additional v HK-China-HK) money than you would for a visa and wasting tons of time in the process. I'm guessing the Chinese didn't give much thought to that type of traveler when they designed and implemented 240-hour TWOV.
I don’t think so as ever since TWOV I have known a guy who is doing this HKG-China-Macau and vice versa literally every month, often just a few days of each such trip. It is a much more cost effective and convenient way than going thru the process of applying a Chinese Visa which might not even be approved for those of us who were born in HongKong/Macau/Taiwan yet have not been able to get the Home Return Permit..
The Chinese Visa would cost me at least $400+ because the need to use an agent. Sure it is a 10 years visa but honestly speaking I don’t even go to Asia every year let alone China.
On top of that it might not get approved due to the still existing law/regulation for those who were born in Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan. Officially you are treated as Chinese National. The passport of your adopted country is just a “Travel Document” NOT a proof of your nationality. Go ask Percy how his bro has to go thru in order to get a Chinese Visa - that is you must officially renounce you “Chinese Nationality” before you can be treated as a citizen of your adopted country which you hold the passport. Or for that matter I have to surrender my right to abode in Hong Kong / HKSAR Passport before I am eligible to get a Chinese Visa with US Passport. I am warned by several here that even if I get it from Embassy at DC, allegedly the place that is most accommodating, I might get in trouble either entering China or exiting China because again the law does not allow such, and my US passport would not offer me any protection should some nutty government official decides to follow the letter of the laws and detain me even just for a few hours to a few days.
Officially the “Home Return Permit” is the only travel document people like me could use to enter China lawfully, before this TWOV become available, and now being encouraged. And that Permit is not easy to obtain these days. They always can find something to make it an impossible task if you are not actually living in Hong Kong. I did try in the past, twice, to no avail.
OTOH, TWOV is very easy to arrange. The added 5 ports of entry at Guangdon province makes it more efficient both in terms of time and cost. I understand one cannot travel to a good part of China including Tibet and Xinjiang for example, nor to stay longer than 10 days. So yeah in that sense you do incur more time and cost if you want to do longer, more extensive travel inside China. But all I care about now is a trip in the Youngtze river delta zone, that we fly from EU to PVG then leave from HGH to HKG. And the Pearl river delta zone, in 2 separate TWOV in a single Asia trip so not to waste the airline tickets. These days awards between Asia and North America are very difficult to come by and cash tickets remain quite expensive without using certain tricks. Therefore I don’t want to waste it for just doing one TWOV. Hence the new additions actually would save me both time and money as I don’t need to detour to Taiwan or wherever in order to meet the TWOV requirement.