Has anyone registered at PEK? I've got a new passport and residence permit, and would love to be able to take advantage of this.

I'm flying out of terminal 2 in 2 weeks. If someone knows the procedure there, I would appreciate advice.

I think you can only register on entry, not on exit. Next time you enter China ask at the border where you can register. They'll help you out.

I have registered at PEK. You have to do it on entry - right after passport control there is a raised desk. Ask there - takes 10 minutes - short form, thumbprints, etc. It is easy.

It should work on entry AND exit from China, which is huge (for those of us who often wait in the line to exit). Having said that, I have tried it twice and it did not work - yet. On exit last week, they told me my passport was fine, but that my boarding pass was not. I think my error - I printed the BP at home and should have done it at the check in so that my papers could be validated by someone. Will try that again this Saturday.

On entry couple of days ago, the eChannel machines were out of order - oh well. I will keep trying, it should work and will be very valuable.

(One note - when it did not work on exit, the guard was nice enough to take me to the front of the APEC line for the person to handle ASAP, so it still saved me a boatload of time).

Best of luck with this, it is big.

I am not sure e-channel avail for exit - too many people have told me not yet - I will try tomorrow and have one other person checking as well. I will update....

Not yet available for exit at SHA T1

I can confirm that e - channel does NOT work on EXIT from PEK. Two of us tried, they say not "yet". Keep hope alive for the future. It is supposed to work....one day.

There is no exit echannel yet. They keep saying "soon" whenever I ask. Seems to be the same meaning as 马上到。:)

Oh, I thought that mean "I am on the train, we are not at the station but it may be the next one or two, but given the traffic you might as well leave now and we will make it to the station at the same time :)

Just saw this thread.

I enrolled in the China eChannel program and it is great. Save my previous passport pages.
I have only used it in PEK and SZX at both entry and exit terminals.

Unfortunately on exiting the country I can't use the machines because my name has an ' in it and boarding passes don't show those. If your name in the passport isn't exactly the same as it is on the boarding pass they machine won't accept you. This isn't a problem for Chinese names but I gather it's a problem for many foreigners with apostrophes, Jr., Sr. III, etc in their names. Hopefully they will fix this. As an aside, I can use the exit machines at the land border crossings in Shenzhen as there is obviously no ticket to match names with.

The same applies for middle names, ticket needs to match passport exactly including middle names to use the e-channel to exit.
Not an issue if using e-channel to enter.

Many thanks for this. In fact, my passport name is FIRST MIDDLE LAST, while my ctrip profile name is LAST/FIRST MI. I will fix this to LAST/FIRST MIDDLE, and report back wrt exits.

My name is too many characters to use for exit (by 2 characters) so I have not been able to use the e-gate in Shanghai. I've spoken with the airline (MU mostly) and the agents at the e-gate and they both say there is nothing to be done. I am pretty sure there is a specific format used by all airlines because my boarding passes with JAL. CX, UA, AA, etc. all format my name the same way, with two characters cut-off so its pretty unlikely that side of the process will change. It's also unlikely the government will relax the requirements to base e-channel usage on passport only with no need to match the full name. Basically this is me whining about something I cannot change.

It's kind of a pain but sometimes if you go to the e-gate and get rejected, the agent will direct you to jump the queue at the manned checkpoint. I suppose I will have to try to exclude my middle name upon renewal of my passport, if that is allowable. .

The e-gate worked for me on exit once in PEK, but it was probably manual over-ride by the agent.

I arrived at PVG T2 yesterday and since the new fingerprint scanning procedures were introduced April 28th, I'm no longer able to use e-channel for entry. I was told by an officer that foreigners registered to use the e-channel will need to complete the fingerprint procedures at level 2 followed by manned passport control a total of 3 entries before being able to use e-channel again.

They already have our fingerprints...plus blood tests, chest x-rays, and ultrasounds.