Hello,

I will be traveling with China Eastern (economy) through PVG and have a lay-over scheduled for 15 hours in PVG Terminal 1 (MNL-PVG-YVR). I will be there between 8am-11pm.
Shanghai is a great city, I lived there for about 6 months, but that was 10 years ago.
Now I do not have a visa to enter China (I'm not from one of those countries whose citizens are able to enter China visa free for a certain number of hours). Logistically it's not possible for me to apply for a visa before the trip.
PVG as an airport isn't a very nice one from what I can remember and what I can find online.
I tried calling several hotels who advertise to be located at or near PVG, but they all say I would need a visa to be able to go to their hotel.

Any recommendation what I should do?
Are there paid lounges that I can use? I can't seem to find info like that online.

Thank you in advance for your help!

I don't think there is a single country in the entire world whose passport holders are not eligible for 24 hour TWOV in China. Go into town during that layover!

Hello Moondog, thank you for the reply.
I looked at the Wikipost http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...er-thread.html and it seems like only nationals of certain countries below are eligible: Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria,
Belgium, Bosnia and Hezegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada,
Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Rep., Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland
(Rep.), Italy, Korea (Rep.), Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg,
Macedonia (FYROM), Malta, Mexico, Montenegro, Netherlands,
New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russian Fed.,
Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, USA,
Ukraine and United Arab Emirates

Am I mistaken? I am an Indonesian passport holder. Let me know if I should then move this conversation to a different thread. Thanks again.

I don't think you can leave the airport..airside? Surely not check into a hotel..maybe the hotels in the middle of PVG?

since CAN PVG and PEK are now 72 hr twov it may be different from when PEK was 24 hr with relaxed leave the airport?

Passengers from countries which do not qualify for 72 hr twov.

A foreign citizen who is transiting through China by air is exempted from a visa if he/she will stay only in the airport for no more than 24 hours and has a valid connecting ticket with confirmed seating on an international flight.

You and I both know that the "staying in the airport" provision simply isn't true in the practical sense (CAN is the ONLY airport where I've heard about this being enforced). In fact, this is impossible in most cases.

Thanks again for the reply. So you're saying I can just walk out of PVG into the city, and there should be no problem coming back?
Or how does this look like? Thanks.

Correct. You have nothing at all to worry about.

I wasn't sure when they extended the twov to 72 hours that they may be more strict on the 24 hour twov for countries that aren't on the 72 hour list. ie: Nigeria.

Seems in the past most of the FT members asking about twov were from countries that are on the 72 hour list.

Essentially anyone from any country, with any background, can legally enter China, under any circumstance.

Yes. This is precisely why I called you out on post 3 (no need to instill fear in the OP).

Seems odd, in a country that monitors the whereabouts of visitors, anyone with a passport can enter legally. I guess a necessity to achieve air travel dominance.

There's nothing "odd" about it in the slightest. Chinese airlines want to be competitive, wield a considerable amount of 关系, and realize that trapping passengers in airports for 15 hour stretches is not cool.

72 hour TWOV entails a slightly different dynamic because in addition to the airlines, cities themselves crave additional spending from transit passengers.

Thank you very much for the info. This is good news then. I will try to enter the city during the long lay-over. The last time I was there, Shanghai only had 2-3 metro lines, and it seems like there are 16 now. So the city must have changed quite rapidly, especially when it was getting ready for the 2010 expo.
Thank you again!

Hello all,

Thanks again for your help. Yes I was able to enter the city without any difficulty, even without a visa. I was given a 24-hour period to do so.