Originally Posted by Vulcan
Well, the eticket system works, sort of. We arrived at PEK at 525 AM a fe minutes ago after a 25 minute cab ride from the St. Regis. On arrival at the China Eastern Check in couter, there were two eticket machines, with a big "Wellcome, please insert you passport" on them in English. Unfortunately, both werre broken and we were directed to the regualry check in lines. To my surprise, the guy handling it found the reservation and quickly printed boarding passses. I will say that we passed the Air China check in counters where there were 3 working eticket machines and a live personn next to each.
We have made it as far as the Priority Pass Air China lounge, which is not bad. I am about to try the pumpkin congeee
Just a followup
I am now back home in NJ. The return from XIY went well. We arrived a few hours early and found an MU 'eticket' desk, opposite the check-in counters. After the woman behind it finished a 5 minute telephone convresation with a friend, we gave her our passports and copy of the Yoee.com confirmation. In about 30 seconds she printed out 'paper tickets' (actually, just a pin feed dot matrix 1/2 page document) for each of us which we took across the floor to the check-in counters and had no problem checking in. They changed our seats to our aisle preferences without a hassle.
The credit card charge hit my account while on the trip and was converted at 7.42.
All in all, an acceptable experience. Of course there are many things that can go wrong (THIS IS CHINA), but I suspect, like the US, more and more travel will be by eticket in China. The only thing I might have done differently was to use Air China outbound, since they really seem to be working hard to make etickets in China work.
The big plus in all of this is the ability to access in advance (buy 2-7 days before the flight, as recommended by moondog), low chinese domestic airfares from the US. My average of 500Y each way was exactly what moondog suggested was the lowest cost for this trip generally available from local agents.
I would do this again, with the only caveat being, this is China, so expect the unexpected and just deal with it.
Edited to add:
BTW, the pumpkin congee was OK, but pretty bland
