Seems inconsistancy is the only consistant thing here...
 

There have been FT'ers on the MH Z fares BKK-KUL-PEK who I've met who don't have any Chinese visa. They go to the transit desk then back downstairs airside and hang out until the CX lounge opens, then move to the CA Business Lounge to sleep in one of the pods. PEK is supposed to be more problematic on TWOV than PVG, requiring an application, etc. Plus the "transit" desk at PVG was rarely staffed when I was flying to and from PVG, maybe different now.

But then, it's an AA thing. Why not just get the 10 year visa and use the low fares offered to save the aggravation, as well as the potential additional costs?

The original policy is ~30 years old, and was developed at the behest of CAAC in order to allow its airlines to compete for traffic between Europe and Oceania.

During ensuing years, TWOV has evolved according to economic and political forces, and become increasingly regionalized (e.g. lots of cities are joining the 72 hour bandwagon, and are left to their own devices wrt implementation).

However, the core framework hasn't changed a great deal. And, this includes the continued focus on immediate entry/exit. Do the border control people in Shanghai know that the OP can fly to America from Japan? Sure. Do they care? No...because that's beyond their scope.

Commiserations to the OP.

AA erred in their decision, despite assurances from the embassy and TIMATIC that he was good for travel.

As a regular on the dedicated TWOV thread here on FT, and as someone who has used it many times, the OP's itinerary was just fine. Chinese immigration looks only at the immediate inbound and outbound boarding passes. The rest is irrelevant.

There are stories of agents being unable to correctly use TIMATIC, but there hasn't been a single reported instance of immigration in China refusing entry.

If the OP had been on a carrier flying PVG-NRT-USA with a single flight number, and the boarding pass had the destination of the USA, AA would have been correct. But that's not what happened here.

I don't think anyone should comment if they haven't done it and thus have no clue what they are talking about. Unless something changed in the past 18 month, the OP is CORRECT, I have done a similar routing and have known people that have done similar routings. The AA agents were wrong and I would definitely fight this. Good Luck!

I agree: The OP's itinerary was 100% compliant with China's TWOV system. The AAgent was 100% in the wrong. Check out the long TWOV thread in the FT China forum if you want to understand how it works. The discussion is now 200-plus pages, but the Wiki info spells things out concisely and clearly.

Coming from someone who knows a bit about Timatic, the language used is not based on IATA standards / common ticketing terms. It might not look like it, but the intention is for Timatic to be written in layman terms.

Most people commenting on this thread are obviously unfamiliar with the transit rules in China.
This itinerary was compliant and AA was clearly wrong.
30,000 travelers took advantage of the visa-exemption last year to stay in the Shanghai area for up to 6 days. Nothing so mysterious about it. Tons of people do it daily.
Those unfamiliar with the rules should not bother to comment on this thread.

Actually PEK is not problematic at all. There is nothing to apply for in advance. You get off the plane, walk to immigration, look for the sign that says Visa-free transit or something like this, get in line, show your passport and onward ticket and you are good for 72 hours in Beijing. Actually, the line for the visa exemption is usually the shortest line at immigration.

The "transit" period is up to 144 hours, which is far more than the usual brief stop to connect from point A to point B that most think of as transit.

In other words, if China really meant the visa waiver to cover only traditional transits, they wouldn't have made the period so long.

This is not a loophole as some suggest. This visa-free transit policy has been expanded in recent years to cover more airports in China and the time was extended from 72 to 144 hours for Shanghai. This is the official announcement of the modified policy: http://www.sh-immigration.gov.cn/lis...?lx=40&id=4421
It is clear and simple and it is advertised all over the airport. Not quite a loophole.

I am aware of the existence of the policy. It's the meaning of the word transit that evokes the debate in this thread as well as the AAgent's apparently misinterpretation i.e. a round trip with a stop in the return leg usually doesn't mean transit in the common usage of the term.

If you suggest that it's not a "sanctioned loophole" then why not just make it visa free for 3 or 6 days regardless of whether the outbound flight stops somewhere else before heading back to the origin of the flyer?

The AAgent might have made a mistake in not allowing OP to fly but given how the TWOV policy is worded, I can easily see more mistakes of this sort down the road.

They want the (10000x) people who travel on more conventional routings to continue to use visas.

China consistently uses the word transit in all of their communication on this visa-free facility. But as others have mentioned, Chinese immigration checks only whether the inbound flight arrives from a different country than the outbound flight. It does not have to be a logical transit. SEA - PVG - YVR is perfectly acceptable - that is, flying 11,000 miles to connect between two cities 150 miles apart.

I wonder if it is a translation issue? China may be using a word that translates to transit when that is not the exact meaning.

If you read through these posts you will know I have been for the OP the whole time, but I can understand where the opposition are coming from. No need to bash them. It's good information to find out what the problem is and hopefully how to fix it. This thread is probably a microcosm of what is happening. Most people are good with it, but others are stuck on the legal wording. What can we do to get the legal wording changed?

The issue seems to be Timatic and IATA. From my understanding it will have to be the airlines to ask IATA to change Timatic or put out a response. How does that happen?

In this case AA denies boarding to cover themselves from financial consequences of traveler being denied entry due to non compliance with TWOV rules. AA's negligence causes traveler to incur damages.
AA should immediately compensate their customer for their loss. Its cost of doing business.
Failure to pay up immediately shows consciousness of guilt.