Visa's for China
 

I was looking on Delta.com for info regarding required travel documents for China, as I am planning on taking my 14 year old grand daughter there for a visit this summer. The only reference to a visa is when traveling in a group and the travel agent must arrange the visas. So what is the scoop, we are planning on flying in PEK and spending about a week. Do we or do we not need visas (both of us are US citizens traveling on U. S. passports). Thanks in advance for all of your help.

Yes, you will need a visa. Check the website for the Chinese Embassy in the US. (Info on Delta site at http://www.visacenter.com/home.aspx?..._content=visit )

You will want to check whether you need a letter from your grandchild's parents to travel. Some countries require this; I don't know about China

Yes, you both do. All US citizens need Chinese visa regardless of length of stay. A travel agent does not HAVE to do it; when I went my friend's dad took both of our passports to Chinese consulate in Houston and had it done there (we were not present). Cost ~$140 each due to reciprocal fees.

This is not specifically related to DL so I expect it will be moved.

Yes visa is required. You will need to either go to a Chinese consulate in person or use a visa service. I have used www.mychinesevisa.com and they were very quick and efficient.

You can use the form at the bottom of this page to check visa requirements. Simply fill in your destination country or countries.
http://www.delta.com/planning_reserv...tion/index.jsp


While true in most practices, passengers with US and other passports arriving in Shanghai via air can visit the city for 48 hours without a visa.
http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/hzqz/zgqz/t84242.htm

I used http://www.uschinavisa.com/ recently for a trip to PEK. I paid for a single visit visa and they gave me a multi-visit one year visa at no extra cost. Prices are good as well.

Their trip must have been considered TRANSIT. There are now good possibilities for visa-free transit at major Chinese airports. The rules are different, for example, for PEK vs PVG. However, AFAIK just going to China and back, even for a short stay, does not qualify as one must be transiting to a third country. YMMV but I would never risk trying to get around the visa rules in this situation.

Consider the threads "REALLY, Delta.dumb?" or "Why has it crashed ... NO seats out of JFK all month?!" etc ad nauseam re. their ability to sell a seat on their own plane ..... and then wonder if it is not the ideal location to get advice on Chinese visas :D

Sounds like an awesome trip though ... you're a nice grandpa ... have fun!

Good point - thanks for clarifying. I too would not want to risk it as deportation would really stink.

I have used travisa.com for both India and China visas. Very nice web interface and it shows status of application etc.

You definitely need a visa as others have pointed out. I get one every year for work. It's easy to get through a visa agency. I would advise you get the multiple entry visa even if it's more $. It's valid for a year and will guard against unplanned stops in China. An example would be if your flight from a Chinese airport is canceled for some reason and you have to reenter the country. You don't want to have used your single entry for a misconnect that falls short of your destination. Also, make sure you have at least 6 months remaining on your passport from the time the visa will expire. Otherwise they won't grant you one.

YOU Don't need to be at consulate in person, you just need to find someone(friend, relatives, agents) to submit for you

I took advantage of the visa-free transit in PVG last year to do a quick visit to see the expo. I flew NRT-PVG-ICN with 47:15 minutes on the ground in PVG. In the end it worked, but I had to convince the agent in NRT to issue my BP (she had to carefully read the exceptions), and I had to wait at immigration in PVG for about an hour while they verified my outbound flight (no idea why it took so long).

Chinese Visas
 

Thanks for all the information, I really do appreciate it.

The rule is that you are not required to obtain a visa only if you are transiting through a mainland Chinese airport to another international destination, you do not leave the airport, and you are there for less than 24 hrs.

http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/hzqz/zgqz/t84242.htm

Before I had a Chinese visa, I transited through CAN on my way to TPE. Technically didn't require a visa but still got held up at immigration even though I showed them their own rules.

Of course, the rules were in English, not Chinese, so they had no idea what they were reading. :D

[QUOTE=mike_plat;15639433I would advise you get the multiple entry visa even if it's more $. It's valid for a year and will guard against unplanned stops in China.[/QUOTE]

I just picked up my Chinese visa from the consulate in Chicago yesterday. For US citizens, the cost for a multiple-entry visa is the same as a single-entry visa. The only added costs are the costs for mailing or for expedited service (I flew up to Chicago over my weekend and needed my visa quickly, and so spent the extra $30 for same/next-day processing). As long as you follow the directions on the visa applications—something that most people applying for the visas apparently failed to do—the process is fairly easy, even though the lines are long.

Delta simply links to Timatic for the info. Timatic is the industry standard database for such information, a service of IATA. And kudos to Delta for making the database accessible; few airlines do.

Thought I would add my experience with going to China.

BEWARE OF IROPS checking in at a busy DL operation with a Chinese Visa. You must check in with an agent, no Kiosks.

My second trip to China was in March/April 2008. Leaving on Friday, BHM-ATL-ICN-PVG. Weather/Equipment Outage in ATL delayed BHM-ATL to arrive 30 minutes after ATL-ICN left. GA was very helpful, rebooked me ATL-PVG direct for next day. Took BHM-ATL on Friday, and spent the night in ATL. Arrived next day 3 hours ahead of time. Problem was between IROPS/the first day of Georgia Spring break, DL check-in in ATL was melting down. 3 hours in line got me to agent right as my flight was leaving (my last flight w/o status, but later found out Medallion was still 2 hour wait). Spring break meant the only other option was $5000 for Air France to oversell ATL-CDG (continuing to CDG-PVG), or ATL-PVG on Sunday. Needless to say I checked in a 3 AM Sunday Morning, and still waited in line 45 minutes.

Just wanted to point out that you must remember that you have to see an agent to check in for China Itinerary. Kiosk check in would have gotten me to the gate with plenty of time.

I used the service below and it was very fast.
http://www.passportsandvisas.com/visas/china.asp

Mikeplat, if you get Chionese visas every year then you should know that for the last four years or so the price of visas for US pssport holders has been the same irregarless of whether you get a one entry one month visa or a two year multiple entry visas, as posted by another above the only difference in cost is how fast you want it expedited (i.e. less than their "standard" four days). Regarding no visa, the Shanghai information above is factually incorrect. It only applies for up to 48 hours if you are transitting into and out of DIFFERENT Shanghain airports (SHA and PVG), it can at times be a challenge to find int'l flights out of PVG to do this....I have had to get people in and out at the last minute who could not get visas in advance and this is not the easiest trick. The only other "hole" currently is that groups of 5 US citizens can visit Hainan with a group visa which is essentially a letter from a Hainan tour agency (many other countries can now do Hainan without Visas, not US citizens though).

BTW, she'll need no such letter, that garbage mostly applies to Canada, Mexico and a few other places near the US (Caribbean and Central America).

The Chinese embassy does not say anything about transiting to a different Shanghai airport:
(Bolding mine)
http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/hzqz/zgqz/t84242.htm

Here is a FT thread on it too: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...e-transit.html

Really glad that I found this thread. I have to travel to HKG and main land China for work. I will be living in HKG for 3 months, my employer will be applying for a multiple entry visa to China in HKG, not in the USA. My family will be moving out with me to HKG as well, my employer advised me to apply for their visas in HKG. I thought you had to apply for a Chinese visa in the USA only. Which one is true?

Thanks

IMO you need to read the rules yourself very carefully. It might be faster and cheaper to obtain a visa for China in Hong Kong. However, typical rules (I haven't checked in this case--you need to do the research yourself) say that one must apply for visas either from one's country of citizenship or one's country of permanent residence. It probably depends on whether you and your family will be considered official "permanent" residents (and have received all of the documents to this effect) by the time you need the visa.

However, as others have mentioned in this thread, multientry visas for China (assuming US citizen) are now (post-Olympics) relatively easy to get (especially if you previously have had a visa for China), although no China visa is cheap for a US citizen. The main hassle is that you must either apply in person or use a visa agency.

There are a few visa agencies in Hong Kong that can get you a visa to mainland China. I recall one in Central on Queens but I would have to look up the cross street.

The cost is a bit higher than in the US but they can accommodate applicants in 24 hrs. That sure beats having to fly back to Houston/Chicago/etc.

my gf used www.visahq.com for this past summer. You can submit application online and mail them your passport. They have online updates to show you which stage in the process your application is on in terms of receipt of passport, submission, etc. She had applied for single entry visa but received multiple entries visa instead which would normally cost more and require a letter of explanation. Not sure if that happens to everyone who applies through them or was just an unexpected bonus. She chose 3 bus. day processing and got passport back within a week or so.

yes
 

you need visas for China.

also, to pluralize a word, all you need to do is add an s. Sometimes an es. NEVER an 's.

I also wanted to add that you don't need to be transiting to a different airport, as I flew into and out of PVG.

Who told you this nonsense?

You are right, they changed the verbiage, OTOH I just checked Timatic and there is no such mention of any such visa for Shanghai (there used to be) but it now seems that Hangzhou has opened up a little bit more............

That's what I see on TIMATIC (courtesy of delta.com). But, let me tell you what I've observed over during the course of my China related career:

-iirc, the 48 hour deal in SH was introduced on 10/1/99 (National Day), or close to it, in conjunction with the opening of Pudong Airport. Reading between the lines, I'm guessing there was some sort of push to bolster the new airport's status as a regional hub.
-back then, and until fairly recently, all international flights were operated from PVG. Therefore, the idea of forcing people to switch airports in order to avail of the 48 hour stay opportunity would have been completely impossible. Even now, the list of international destinations from Hongqiao is less than 10 in length.
-Visa free transit at other airports started around the same time (I think). As CA, CZ, and MU expanded, they pursued markets such as Europe-Australia and USA-SE Asia. Since airside transit was impossible back then, they wouldn't have been able to get many passengers if a Chinese visa was a requirement.
-I've never availed of visa free transit myself because I always have a PRC visa, but it's a pretty neat program.... a nice opportunity to include a (very) short visit to China on your next award trip.

Somewhat off topic, I was just checking out the wiki on this subject and noticed that citizens of San Marino (a country I've barely heard of) are allowed to stay in China for 90 days at a time without visas. Does anybody know why?

And to complicate things further (or make them easier, which is how we look at it!), if you enter China via Tibet, all the rules change! The quick google-found website below matches the information received by our tour operator.

We're going to Kathmandu and overland (via Everest base camp!) to Llhasa and then via the Tibetan railway into mainland China.

There are two in the airport at HKG that will get you also multi-entry visa for China. It usually takes around 6 hours, so if you get an am arrival, you can fly (or take the train) to China in the late afternoon. I did once get stuck where they could not get it for me until the next morning- so make sure you have a flexible ticket if flying same day out of HKG. For some reason, they always have asked for a business card as well- a colleague of mine didn't have one so they printed one for him (it seemed strange to me- but they said if you want the one year visa that is the rule).

Very weird as what I just got off Timatic was:

Visa required.

Visa Issuance:
- On arrival: if required, to those arriving at Haikou Meilan
or Sanya Phoenix International Airports, travelling as part

of a tourist group (5 or more people) to Hainan Province for
a max. stay of 15 days, organized by a travel agent
registererd in Hainan Province and approved by the Natonal
Tourism of China.
- On arrival: at Hangzhou International Airport, for tourist

groups of travel agencies which belong to Zhejiang Province
for a max. stay of 1 month. Fee: CNY130.-.
Additional Information:

- Note: different passport validity may be required when
applying for a visa.
- Valid visas or resident permits in expired passports are
accepted, provided holding valid passport of the same
nationality.

- Travel on a one-way ticket is accepted. However, visitors

must hold sufficient funds to cover their stay and all
documents required for their next destination.

Warning:
- Passengers not complying with the entry or transit
regulations will be deported by same or returning aircraft.

I didn't think a quick visit to the expo was possible.:p

I've had friends who were only able to get six month multiple entry visas in HKG this past year, not a full year. If you would like the additional six months, it might be worth applying for it in the states since it is a really straightforward process.

FT is a great resource. The FT thread mentioned above is a wealth of info on visas in China... Also see:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...ina-visas.html

you can apply in Hong Kong, period!

From reading the posts on here, the visa agencies are easily accessible there. I'll probably wait until they get there and they can apply for the visas there. They're just looking to get a single entry, however if the 6 month multiple entry visa is about the same price, they will apply for that.

haha, sounds good. I'll look into it when I get settled there.