I find your condescending attitude towards this person you don't know anything about to be rather offensive.

Then you must be frantically searching for things to be offended by. :)

Touché. My words didn't flow quite the way I intended. The point I was attempting to suggest is that --for all we know-- the email in question represents the official position of the PRC consulate. And, based on my experiences with Chinese government agencies, I'm guessing this is the case. I shall also note that nobody who lands those overseas posts is "low level".

I know I come to FlyerTalk to learn from other peoples' travel stories. I appreciate your taking the time to bring your unfortunate and frustrating experience to our attention.

I have learned a lot from reading this thread. Yes, the TWOV as you described is possible and yes, people do it all the time, but if in some future trip I wish to avoid the 2 hours wasted, and hundreds of dollars in hotel reservation charges, excursion costs, extra parking, etc., I will just go to the extra trouble and expense of getting a visa in advance.

Again, thank you for saving me some amount of hassle and expense in the future.

I've never been subject to any additional scrutiny by Chinese authorities for doing TWOV with short connections in my "third" country. Nor have I read any reports about such scrutiny in the TWOV mega-thread in the China forum.

All evidence suggests that China is just fine with someone using TWOV as (effectively) visa-free entry for 3 or 6 days. My last TWOV was HND-SHA/PVG-HKG with multiple days in Shanghai and only a few hours in HKG—clearly I didn't need that much time to transit China on such a route. And yet, nobody at Chinese immigration at SHA asked even a single question about my itinerary once I presented a compliant onward ticket.

I'll note I've never attempted TWOV on an itinerary where I had to check in with a US carrier. ;)

The China forum's mega-thread is the fifth result on Google for "chinese transit without visa". I have to imagine we'd have gotten reports there of issues with Chinese authorities if these sort of itineraries were problematic from the perspective of Chinese immigration.

C17PSGR, with all respect, but defending AA agents that 100% made a mistake by claiming that TIMATIC is unclear, really?

Either AA should be banned from flying to China (and any other civilized country, actually) if they're unable to teach their staff properly, or such staff should be fired for pure incompetence.

The rules are 100% clear.

There is no such thing as "interpreting rules". They're clear enough. If airlines fail to understand them, maybe they should stop operating international flights.

Where? in the China immigration rules. It is a "transit" as they decide to define it. You cannot travel all over China under this exemption. You are limited to the city or "area" where the transit is taking place.
They obviously do this to promote short term tourists and as a result. it makes it attractive to travel via those Chinese airlines who will get the bulk of this traffic. Some airlines aven offer you a free hotel (one night).
Again, this is not an obscure rule nor a loophole. They are promoting this like crazy. There is an economic purpose to it.

Shanghai Immigration website: http://www.sh-immigration.gov.cn/lis...?lx=40&id=4421
See question 13. It deals with this situation and they suggest that you do a stopover. You are not gaming the system when they recommend it.

I think you're misinterpreting my post ;)
I was responding to a prior post that was defending AA's position by sticking to the "transit" terminology.

I think the rational understanding is as you described - this isn't about "transit" as who books a 6-day long transit??? :D

The word transit has been the problem, but if you think of the definition of transit, it shouldn't be. By definition what the OP did is fine. Stop saying common sense dictates it isn't because it's quite the opposite, common says it is ok.

Since we are flying types we think like the airlines and the airlines care about it because of pricing, but the word transit means passing through regardless if it is for 1 minute or 3 months. By definition (LAX-PVG-NRT-LAX) either PVG or NRT can be considered a transit location and either can be considered destination.

China didn't craft the TMOV thinking of flying terms, they crafted it based on people moving around terms.

My Real Life Example in the difference between airline's definition and the fact that it can be defined differently than the airline:

I needed to apply for a NC marriage license in NC while living in the UK. I didn't want to fly to the USA and not visit my fiance in PHL. My flight:

LHR->PHL (left Friday morning to spend weekend in PHL, ~40 hours in PHL)
(Leave PHL Sunday early afternoon to arrive in RDU early evening)
PHL->RDU ->LHR
(overnight layover in RDU, < 24 hours, go to courthouse in the morning, fly out in the afternoon)

From an airline standpoint my destination was PHL while transiting through RDU, but from my standpoint my destination was RDU, with a transit through PHL. I am not playing a loophole in the definition or making stuff up by having RDU as my goal and destination.

Which is possibly a good option for US citizens wanting to minimise risk.

But plenty of non-US citizens on these boards for whom a 10 year visa is not an option... and visas need to be applied for at least annually (more in the first year as you build up eligibility).

TWOV saves a lot of time and money for those of us without the 10 year option.

^ That's 50K bonus miles for each member of OPs party for accusing them of ill intentions.:)

13.Q: If I, an Australian citizen, plan to travel from Sydney to Shanghai and then back to Melbourne by air, can I apply for 144-hour visa-exemption transit?

A: The policy requires that a foreign passenger book his / her onward air / vessel / train tickets with confirmed seat in advance and leave China within 144 hours for a third country or region, and therefore it is our suggestion that you change your flight ticket to Melbourne to one bound for a third country or region such as Hong Kong, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur, and return to Melbourne afterwards. Such an arrangement will enable you to meet the requirements for 144-hour visa-exemption transit.

I posted this a long time ago, but some people got on me about what I said for the first 2 sentences and ignored everything else I said.

Could be a medical issue.

:) lol...