Originally Posted by
yuuj
All Chinese airlines require identity documents when booking. However, when the tickets are booked from non-Chinese OTAs, the documents were not processed, which is the reason why the ticket is not available.
That's a bit of a sweeping statement, many OTAs will request API data when booking, whether they enforce it the way the Chinese oriented booking sites will do is another question.
So it's a good point, if API data wasn't collected/provided at booking then this may make management of the booking more tricky, but should be resolvable but may require a phone call to the carrier.