MSPeconomist

Moreover, most travelers don't know how to view and interpret fare components on a ticket, even if this information were visible during the reservation process. Plus, what would be the destination and what would be the transit if someone had purchased A-B, B-C, and C-A all as separate one way fares?

anacapamalibu

Their initial response essentially shifted blame to TIMATIC. Whether that holds water is yet to determined.

JonNYC

A round-trip ticket to China is not a complicated nor opaque notion to even the relatively unsophisticated traveler. And, as stated many times, the most obvious reading of such a ticket is that that's what it is-- most importantly to (AA) airport ticketing agent.

As far as the "A-B, B-C, and C-A all as separate one way fares" -- that one's simple as well-- wouldn't be in any away ambiguous to airport personnel in this context, even ones without a ton of experience or training in this area.

The coming codeshares with CZ and the imminent AA LAX-PEK addition will reportedly improve the training component in this area.

anacapamalibu

35 flights a week and the 3rd country rule has been in effect and never changed for many years. What makes you think they might gey it right with above?

shorthauldad

From: China 24, 72, and 144 hour Transit Without Visa ("TWOV") rules master thread

(My highlight)

An airport agent only needs to look at two flights in the OPs itinerary, the flight into China, and the flight out.

What can be more obvious than that?

JonNYC

I've already explained all this upthread.

shorthauldad

A good friend of mine flew "from LHR to HKG via CTU", except the fare was a round-trip to CTU, with a couple of hours in CTU, and a 7-day stopover in HKG.

TWOV in CTU, as he expected. This seems to be the counter-example to the claim that...

If FTers can't agree, how is some random airport agent supposed to get this right?

TProphet

The fare construction and fare rules have nothing to do with how China sees transit. This often happens with airlines - they think the whole world works the way that they sell tickets.

All China cares about is that if you're coming from country A into China, you depart for country B. They don't care how you bought the ticket, what you're doing in country B, or for how long you'll be there. They don't care whether your fare is one way or roundtrip. All that matters to them is that when you leave China, your flight goes to a different country than the one you came from.

The OP clearly met this requirement. It isn't complicated. It's dead simple. AA is 100% in the wrong here.

nutwpinut

Thanks for the updates! It's what's keeping me interested in this thread.

anacapamalibu

close to 9 years...3rd country rule has never changed.

Visa-free entry & Transit (G) Visa



Updated: 19/09/2008

★Visa-free entry for visitors: No visa is required for ordinary passport holders from Singapore ,Brunei and Japan to visit China for up to 15 days for business, sightseeing, visiting relatives and friends or transit.

★Visa-free transit
1. Visas are not required of aliens who hold air tickets to the final destination and have booked seats on international airliners flying directly through China, and will stay in a transit city for less than 24 hours without leaving the airport.
2. Visas are not required of passport holders of the following countries, who transit through Pudong Airport or Hongqiao Airport of Shanghai, provided they hold valid passports,

C17PSGR

If you look back at the thread, this is certainly a disputed issue. As one of the posters indicates, he had a problem with DL with different tickets, which is not an issue here.

Here, some of us would suggest that OP's itinerary doesn't comply with the rules as spelled out in Timatic or even as spelled out the English language section of the Shanghai immigration site. The ambassadors from the China forum posting here say that Chinese immigration applies the test you use.

Of course, if Timatic simply said something along the lines of a visa is not required if a person is departing China to a country other than the country of origin, that would be much clearer. Then again, that would require the Chinese government representative to IATA to publicly take that official position ....

C17PSGR

Not sure if that's in Timatic (and it wouldn't apply to OP) but that's obviously unambiguous language! (and very different from what is published regarding OP's situation).

moondog

Passport holders from those countries (plus a few more) don't require visas to visit China. This is not related to TWOV.

gengar

Once again, this is the crux of the matter. Only because people insist on a limited definition of a word and cannot fathom that one arbitrary company's usage of a word could be different from one arbitrary country's border control policy usage of that word is the only reason we can have a 500+ post thread on such a simple issue. Only people with ulterior motives who want to argue for the sake of arguing can consider this "disputed".

Of course, the irony is that - as others have reported upthread - higher-level employees at AA understand exactly how China's TWOV policy works. It's just the entry-level employees who have not been trained appropriately.

If you say so, I'll believe it, and I sure hope so. The OP's situation and AA's current stance of trying to avoid full reimbursement for damages caused is just embarrassing for AA.

JonNYC

If you wanna go down that road, some see "ulterior motives" on both sides (as well as ample display of arguing for the sake of arguing.)

Personally, I see ascribing such motives to those with whom they disagree to be counterproductive.