The only thing with CMHK is Macau is not covered in their data pack and it seems like CX no longer shows the CMHK SIMs in the duty free section of the website as I checked two weeks ago so do you still have to reserve it first or can you just ask the FA's for it when on-board the flight without ordering it first? It was $US18 for the HK$148 face value with 1.5GB from what I remember. The top up is $100 for 1.5GB so it's cheaper than CUHK in some ways but each data pack is only good for 10 days.

Just checked the CX website and it appears that China Mobile Hong Kong is no longer on the brand list on the bottom, it got replaced by CSL which seems more expensive than CMHK and CUHK:
http://www.cathaypacific.com/dutyfre...chBoxSubmit=Go

with 2 products being:
1) CSL APAC Roaming Data Prepaid SIM Card 8-day Pass for HKD$230 / USD$30 which is 8 days with 1GB of data for 9 countries being mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

2) CSL China-HK-Macau Travel SIM Card for HK$210 / USD$27 which is 8 days with 100MB mobile data roaming in mainland China and Macau, plus 5GB local mobile data and unlimited local voice minutes in Hong Kong, as well as unlimited CSL Wi-Fi service within the first eight days.

I guess for Macau, it's better to just get the China Unicom HK Voyager card instead which is unlimited voice/data in HK and Macau for 7 days for I think $HK58 from the cugstore.com website. Can one get between the arrivals and departures level without going through security? There is 7-11 on the arrivals level according to CUHK that one can buy the recharge vouchers but I don't know if they sell the cards or not.

On the China Unicom Hong Kong Border King Extra, I read that one has to either make a voice call or use data to activate the card. I don't have anyone to call in HK or China, would calling and hanging up before they answer actually activate the card without getting charged the $HK0.39 per minute? As for the data, I could not find anything where they will charge for data by the MB as the $0.80/MB only talks about data after the data pack is used up so does that mean just configuring the APN for 3gnet will activate the card and not charge anything for data since it seems like there is no real internet until you subscribe to a data pack and they start collecting by the MB after the 500MB is used up? Thanks.

You can always buy a card before you leave. This card is only HK$118 per 1GB, with a $18 per month administration fee: http://cugstore.com/usa/prepaid-sim-...vice-plus.html Supposedly, data is passed through HK even when you are in Mainland China, which avoids the need to run a VPN on your phone 24/7.

Then there's this site: https://www.mychinaunicom.com/ which sells Unicom SIM cards for Mainland China only. 6GB can be had for just US$80. If you are in the US, you can buy the same card from Amazon with 6GB of data *and* 50 minutes of local calling on it, for just US$72. You'll obviously need to use a VPN 24/7 with that card though.

Those Unicom prices strike me as a bit over the top. Even if you buy data packets via Wechat (i.e. not generally regarded as an economical option), the price is Y30 per 500MB.

What do you think would be a fair price per GB? I did ask some of my Chinese friends about those prices and they said they weren't too bad. Those plans are valid for 3 months though, obviously you can get more data for less money but in the plans I've seen, it's only valid for 1-5 days.

20g Unicom data Sims cost around y350, and are good for one year. I use one of these Sims in my mifi.

As for my phone, I'm on set b, which includes a certain amount of data (I'm not sure how much off hand because it recently changed), and whenever I run out of data, I simply buy more on wx, which is extremely easy/convenient.

That was exactly what I did. I ordered the cards on April 5th and received them on April 16th. The only thing is you will not be able to add any data packs if you rely on what the card gives you since even though the card says $HK80 is the value on the card, you lose $HK18 immediately after activation which means you only have $HK62 worth of value so you can only add the $HK48 300MB data pack as you are $HK6 short of the $HK68 500MB data pack which comes out to $HK136 per 1GB which is basically another way to get $HK18 from you per 1GB for the privilege of Macau and Taiwan included while the $HK118 is China and HK only. The only problem is you cannot top or add value to the card before you activate the card since you need the phone number to top up which you won't have in advance. As far as data passing through Hong Kong, basically from what I am told, as long as the sim you have is not China based, then all foreign sims will not have the data sensor so you will get facebook, instagram, google, youtube, even if you brought over a AT&T or Verizon Wireless SIM, it would still work.

There is one other option, you can buy the Mobal International SIM card which is unlimited data and unlimited SMS in the entire world and you won't need the VPN either as it's considered a foreign card. It's basically reselling T-Mobile USA but you have to pay for calls at $US0.30/minute. It's basically $US59 for the card which includes one month of service. And then to renew, it's $US50 a month. Only thing is the data is 128kbps just like what people get with T-Mobile with the global free unlimited data roaming.

More info here:
https://www.mobal.com/international-gsm-sim-card/

Depends on the speed of the actual connection since if it is really 3G and not 4G, then it's not worth anything as my 4G through Verizon Wireless is $US30/month unlimited as a example. Google's Project Fi is $US10 per GB and that's worldwide as well but outside the US where it is 4G as they operate as a MVNO that uses both Sprint and T-Mobile, it is 128kbps outside the US. I think they can sell the data in bigger packs, basically the bigger the pack you buy, the lower the cost per MB. The problem ofcourse is no one really knows how much actual data they use except what the carriers tells you and how accurate their metering is so they can say you used 1GB when you really only used 400MB if they wanted to.

That part is true. All SIM cards tunnel data through the home network by default, and your phone behaves as if it were in the country where the SIM card was issued. I did that last time I went to China: carried two phones, one with a voice only Unicom SIM, and one with my data enabled AT&T SIM that was roaming. The only problem with doing that is that I was paying $120 for 800MB, which is an extremely steep price.

Can't you activate it by making a voice call with it (which would consume about 0.39 HKD) and then getting the number, then topping up for the 1GB plan?

I have never, ever seen this plan. Do you have a link to the site advertising it? At that rate though, I'm not sure how they even stay in business.

Also, do you have any comment on this?: http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/China

Is this actually true? Seems really dumb that you'd
(a) have to cancel a prepaid plan, and
(b) would be unable to cancel it if the balance is > 25 RMB

A company that won't just take your money and be done with it?

They're not advertised on English-language sites, at least none that I've found. You have to buy them from Taobao (with someone's Chinese ID) or certain electronics markets (for example, I took some exchange students to the train station in Shanghai to buy those, though some of them with iPhones got 48GB for 450 from China Telecom).

I wouldn't really describe it as a "plan". It's a prepaid data SIM with a face value of Y500 that is commonly heavily discounted. You can buy them on Taobao and electronics stores/markets.

I'm not sure I'll buy another one after my current one expires, though. Yes, my Mifi is better than tethering from my phone (i.e. that's its only "job"), but it's not that much better, and I would never hotspot to my phone just to save a few bucks.

Regarding your question about penalties for failing to cancel prepaid SIMs, that sounds like urban legend to me, but even if true, it's still possible to buy unregistered SIMs (I get these for visitors on a regular basis because I hate waiting in line at Unicom/Mobile stores).

Interesting, so basically with your AT&T SIM, it would actually send all the data back to AT&T's network? Is it in anyway related to the APN used? Wow, $US120 for 800MB is pretty steep.

I can make a voice call but I don't have anyone to call which is where my problem is since I can't just prank call someone I don't know. Maybe I'll just pick a business to call or something since they only say you have to make a call, doesn't say if the call has to be answered or not. The thing is I want to try something that doesn't cost before I activate the data pack as it seems like the way CUHK does it, they will try to drain your card with additional costs like making a call and make you top up before you can even add any data pack and then when you top up, they will probably use something else to drain your balance to something below what the data pack requires. What's interesting is they tell you in the the card folder that you can use data and it will activate but it doesn't list how much data costs standalone by the MB. It only lists data packs and then $0.80/MB thereafter so it seems to mean that the $0.80/MB is only charged when your data pack runs out. It doesn't say how much is charged if you try to use data before you add a data pack.

People honestly do still make voice calls in China, Vince.

Common uses for travelers:
-restaurants/bars
-hotels (especially if you are staying in one with a good concierge)
-Uber/didi (technically feasible without voice, finding the car can be tricky unless you talk with the driver)

Yes, I'm sure it's somehow related to the APN used. Remember that no card changes its APN just because the user is roaming. When I am in China and I use my AT&T SIM, and I go to a site like whatismyip.com, it'll usually show an area like Washington or California, and the internet works as it should. With the HK cross border SIM cards, the APN "3gnet" is used, which is a HK APN, and the internet should also work like it should.

Only problem with doing this (unless you're using the dual number cross border SIM card) is that you're paying standard international roaming rates, which in the case of AT&T, is $120 for 800 MB. I did this last time though because running a VPN on my phone 24/7 was killing the battery.

You can probably just call a business phone number. Preferably one that has a prerecorded message when it answers. Or if you're like me, you do actually have friends in China that you can call. I'd set the data kill switch on my phone initially, so it doesn't consume any data at $0.80/MB, before I can get the number via SMS, top up the card, and sign up for the $118/1GB plan, if I were using the CUHK card.

It is useful to have a Chinese voice number. Last time I was at a Starbucks in China, they required a Chinese voice number that they could send an SMS to before I could get on the WiFi. Not sure why they have the system set up that way (here in the US all Starbucks just run open wifi) but it does require it.

Try dialing *118*35# before trying to make a voice call and see if that works. Otherwise I use 400-888-0808 (JAL Customer Service) as an initial voice call.

I figured this one out. When I took the exchange students to the train station they were all too happy to sell us unregistered SIMs. I asked and was told that the police run sting operations to catch people selling unregistered SIMs so they never sell them to Chinese or even Chinese-looking people (such as myself), but never with foreigners so they know they're still safe selling to people who look obviously not Chinese.

Well that's obviously not an option for me, because I look Chinese. I'm not sure if convincing them that I can't even speak the language would be enough.