Originally Posted by mosburger
I think in general transiting in Japan or Korea is preferable if coming from the US. As far as I know the only aiports in China with a designated transit area are Guangzhou and Hongkong. ICN, KIX or NGO mean a lot less hassle than PVG.
i agree 100%. the problem is when out of pocket expenses come into play, nrt-pek (and to a lesser extent icn-pek) is in different league than sha-pek. also, international---> domestic is pretty painless at pvg because immigration isn't too bad and domestic check-in is very efficient (30 minutes is all you need).
oh, and before closing, i want to chime in on guangzhou. i've transited there 4 times now and pvg works much, much better (can's 3 hour minimum connect time for dom-->int is not a misprint).