Under the transit without visa rules one must depart to a country different to that from which they arrived.

Would the following be possible?

Book a return from Taipei to Shanghai and also a single from Shanghai to Hong Kong.

After obtaining the transit visa, cancel the HongKong flight and return to Taipei on the return ticket. Would this be picked up on departure?

1. Don't attempt to scam the system
2. We already have a (big) thread on this topic
3. The only way to get a transit visa is to apply for one in advance

Thanks for the reply.

1) Good idea in general
2) Do you have a link?
3) I've never needed to apply in advance. Perhaps I mean to say TWOV - transit without visa.

1. There is no "general" about it
-scam the PRC at your own risk (FYI, they have computers now)
2. It is difficult for me to provide the link when I'm posting from my phone, but I dare say that the thread in question is pretty hard to miss
3. Sorry for beating you up over semantics

Genuinely, thanks. I'll look for the thread :-)

It's actually at the top of the list in this forum (just checked).

What happens when its picked up on arrival.


Can't stress enough to pay attention to that bit about not returning to the same country.
I sat 15 hrs on a bench in front of immigration,
being constantly told someone is on the way even though they never
touched the phone, only to have to burn another 65K miles to get a ticket
home. There is a LOT of confusion there with their own Immigration Officers
about what can and can't pass, but its not worth the crap shoot.


Me and my entire family got sent back to the U.S right after landing in
Shanghai 30 hours of flying in a day...SUCKED. Thought we were
able to connect in Shanghai to get to Beijing then over to HKG within
72 hours but found out the hard way that connecting in China
w/out visas isnt allowed but would have been ok if we flew
nonstop from the U.S to Beijing then over to HKG.
Yah a bit confusing.

Connecting in China w/out visa is allowed as long as your transit is under 24h.

Would immigration offer a traveler the opportunity to change their itinerary from 72h to 24h to comply with the rules. Or is it automatic, no entry?

Traveler must have a ticket proving onward travel to a �third country or region� (not the originating country and not in Mainland China)

The term �region� refers to disputed states (e.g., Taiwan) and subnational entities (e.g., Hong Kong and Macau).

Well the airline will not let you board when you don�t match the rules for the 24h.

In the scenario the traveler describes. The airline made an error and allowed
the travelers to board and be flown to china with an itinerary which doesn't comply with TWOV rules. They got to China and were denied entry. The question is, if a traveler arrives to China with an itinerary that does not meet the rules...will immigration offer them a chance to change their itinerary to comply or immediately deny entry with no attempt to mitigate the situation?

Normally the latter. Denial of entry and return to origin. Don't get any on-the-spot "do-overs."

Friends of ours were incorrectly permitted boarding by CX for a HKG-PVG-HKG itinerary. (The full intended itinerary was LAX-HKG-PVG-HKG-LAX.)

On arrival at PVG they were offered a choice - either straight back to HKG, or arrange onward flights to the USA and enter under 72 hour TWOV.

They chose to enter China and CX as inbound carrier was told to help them to organise tickets - which they did, on AA metal, but at full one-way 'walk-up' prices.

They considered themselves lucky. This was a faailure on their behalf, but also on CX's.

I flew a few days later ex HKG to PVG also on TWOV. The CX check-in took an extra long time processing the boarding pass and approving the itinerary - no doubt some 'reminder' had been issued to check-in!

1. I'm guessing it's safe to assume that your friends failed to advise you of their ill fated plan in advance

2. If I had been in their shoes, I would have pressed CX/KA to delete the PVG-HKG segment from my itinerary (while keeping HKG-LAX in tact) in order to fly PVG-MFM instead (dirt cheap on 9C); normally airlines don't tinker with tickets in this manner, but when they are on the hot seat, things are different

3. I am guessing that CX/KA agents make mistakes of this nature on a regular basis (with ~10k passengers/day, such is inevitable... nobody is perfect)