Transiting China
 

My son was recently denied boarding on a flight from San Francisco to Wuhan, China. The entire itinerary was Denver -> Wuhan -> Guangzhou
-> Kathmandu Nepal. The stated reason by the gate agents was something about Chinese immigration not allowing two or more stops while passing through China. This ticket was purchased from Priceline and of course they mentioned no such restriction. My son is now in Nepal on a brand new ticket purchased at a much higher price that did not go through China. I am trying to obtain at least a refund for him while he is off the grid. I have sent written complaints to both Priceline and China Southern Airlines. Priceline responded that a visa from China is required for this itinerary. My research says there is a 24 hour free transit option that does not require a visa (the schedule was to arrive in Wuhan Nov 2 at 6:35pm then depart Guangzhou 8:55am Nov 3.)
By the way, on the day of the flight, Priceline offered absolutely no help over the phone - you are SOL was basically their attitude. Do I have a valid complaint here? Against who - Priceline or China Southern? I have also complained to the Dept. of Transportation and my state attorney general (WA). I have also disputed the charge with the credit card company and they have issued a temporary refund, but I don't know if that will hold. Any advice appreciated.

It is the traveler's responsibility to determine what, if any, visas are required prior to embarking on their trip. If there is ambiguity you should never rely on any third party to inform you of visa requirements but rather get the information directly from the embassy of the countries involved. All airline tickets state in their conditions of carriage (effectively the contract between you and the airline) that the passenger must obtain all necessary visas and that boarding will be denied if proper documentation is not presented.

The Chinese transit-without-visa (TWOV) policies have several nuances and vary between ports of entry. My research indicates that Wuhan is not eligible for multi-stop 24-hour TWOV for US citizens. Therefore, the airline was correct to deny boarding.

See this thread for the best possible information.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...er-thread.html
You might want to ask the mods to move your query there as those guys know everything.

However, directly from the wiki, assuming your son was travelling on a US passport, it does seem he was not eligible for 24hr multi-stop TWOV in Wuhan and the airline was correct to deny boarding.

24-Hour TWOV

24 Hour TWOV: available in most cities except Fuzhou (FOC), Yanji (YNJ), and Shenzhen (SZX)(current exclusion as of 7 August 2016), and the only option if you have more than one stop or transit in China##

Note: passengers travelling on US and Canadian passports are not permitted to use the multiple-stop transit within China if transiting through Tianjin (TSN), Weihai (WEH), Wuhan (WUH), Xi'an (XIY) or Zhengzhou (CGO).

Sadly, as eigenvictor pointed out, it is 100% the passenger's responsibility to ensure they have the correct travel documents. Neither Priceline nor China Southern is liable here, unfortunately.

You won't win this one on the merits - meaning that you were right and he should have been allowed to board. I would try booking another trip using the same search engine and taking screen shots. If there is no warning at all - the OTA may help you (technically still your responsibility but since the industry trend is to draw attantion to that issue...). You might discover that there us a warning that was perhaps overlooked.

The next strategy would be to see if you can get a credit for some portion of the ticket value . Not what you want - but better than nothing.

Interesting to know!
I did Vancouver, Beijing, Shanghai, Melbourne, but I guess the 2 big cities are allowed the multi-stop layover.

Tianjin (TSN), Weihai (WEH), Wuhan (WUH), Xi'an (XIY), and Zhengzhou (CGO) are the only cities NOT permitted for multi-stop TWOV, and this restriction ONLY applies to Americans and Canadians.

I disagree with the idea that the OTA (or airline) should bear any responsibility for advising customers of visa requirements. Their duties don't extend to legal advice.

Just a few days ago on another forum a traveller reported being caught on this very same technicality because of a two-stop transit in Shanghai and Tianjin.

It's an extremely obscure exception, one I cannot understand given it's limited to Canadians and Americans, and you have my sympathy. But my sympathy's not going to get you very far with the airline.

Complaints should go to the Chinese embassy, which on its website does not mention this exception:

http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/visas/zgqz/

To expect travellers to scroll through the jargon of Timatic first to find this well-hidden trap is not reasonable, but that is the expectation.

Sorry.

Maybe the airline will issue a credit, but I don't agree the passenger should have been allowed to board. This could have resulted in more cost if the passenger arrived in China and was sent back to the USA.

It is possible the passenger may have had a visa for China - the OTA doesn't know this. Having to include a warning based on nationality for every booking made on line would be a huge undertaking.

Don't even trust the Embassy site. IIRC, they mention that a ABTC cardholder can enter in lieu of a visa. That applies to full ABTC participating countries with China in the endorsement. That does not apply to transitional countries such as US and Canada. They only let US/Canadian ABTC holders use the ABTC lanes.

Travelers can always check with a visa processing agency to determine if they need a visa. In case where a traveler cannot do TWOV, a G visa may help (should check with agency too).

I don't think he was suggesting to trust the embassy website (we all know that's info on visa matters is incomplete/outdated), but that it could be an okay channel in which to lodge a complaint.

I'm trying to see if CZ itself is at fault.

CZ's website does not provide links to Timatic.

It does have a page called "Visa", but does not have any information regarding China: http://global.csair.com/US/GB/INFO/CXZB/PAVI

Then it has this page (http://global.csair.com/US/GB/FLUS/ZZFW/GJMQ) about "visa-free transit". However, it mentions how CAN-WUH-SFO and other one-stop flights will exclude you for 72 hours. There is nothing about 24 hours or the special WUH restrictions. And the embassy/consulate pages say nothing about it.

Then we must ask, why is CZ in the business flying WUH-SFO if WUH has this restriction? There should be a USDOT complaint filed already!

CZ flights this route because the whole world is not made up of American or Canadian passport holders who do not have Chinese visas, which is who the exception applies to. There are other nationalities in the world, you know. As much as we like to think we are the centre of the universe, CZ obviously does not agree. Saying an airline has no business flying a route because it impacts US and Canadian passport holders who want to use TWOV is ridiculous.

Plus, it is 100% the traveller's reaponsibility to ensure they have the proper documents for their journey. How could CZ possibly bear any reaponsibility for this? This entire post is ridiculous.

How about if the US government were to have a policy that visa holders from China cannot use SJC to enter the US, and US embassies and consulates do not advertise such information, and Air China does not give you a link to Timatic or mention the SJC exception on its website, and then launch a route PEK-SJC? (Fortunately, CA is much more meticulous on its website, listing all documents required of Taiwanese and HKers who've been buying the PEK transit.)

We're talking about what's "reasonable" here. And CZ flying WUH-USA while not mentioning the WUH exception but is selling routings to third countries is not reasonable.

The question is, how are they supposed to find out about this trap?

I have searched even the Chinese pages, and I find no government source reporting this limitation for Americans and Canadians. Not even the Wuhan Foreign Affairs Office:

http://www.whfao.gov.cn/html/guide/2...04_45988.shtml (search way down for "24")

Not to say it's certainly not there somewhere, but I can't find it.

Yes, if passengers burrow down in social media, they might get an inkling there's a problem here. But really, that shouldn't be expected or necessary.

One possibility is that Timatic is wrong. If the OP wants to pursure this, why not ask the PSB in Wuhan about this directly. It's an off-chance, but there's nothing to lose by asking. Here's the page for submitting questions, with your name in the first box, a heading in the second, then the question itself. You can try simple English.

http://www.whcrj.gov.cn/ask.asp

If this post was written by a Chinese mother about her Chinese son going to Cuba with a USA domestic flight in the middle of his itinerary being denied by United Airlines - I am sure it would find no sympathetic listeners at all.

While I agree the powers that be could stand to do a better job of promulgating the restriction in question, I think people should always realize that visa free transit is an EXCEPTION to the general rule. And, anybody wanting to invoke the policy should be damn sure that it applies to their case.

But all sorts of places, like the Wuhan page I cited, make no allusion to the fact there are exceptions to the 24-hour rule.

And I'll remind you that some time ago when I suggested here that TWOV was needlessly complicated and that American and Canadian travellers should avoid a possible headache and consider just getting a visa, I was roundly shouted down as the crowd bayed that really, there's nothing complicated about TWOV. Why, just scroll through all those paragraphs on TIMATIC. If you have access to it.

I stand by that.

If you are already reading FT advice that you should spend money to get a visa you don't actually need is not the best advice available. TIMATIC is easy to read and plenty of folks able to interpret on here if needed.

If you didn't know about FT/other fora or TIMATIC then I agree the exceptions like WUH are probably a little obscure.

This is very poor advice in all respects. Neither the airlines nor TAs (online and brick-mortar) can be expected to have all the updated visa requirements for all nations and all nationalities. As another poster has mentioned, there are other countries in the world other than the U.S. and Canada. TIMATIC is a very useful source of information, and a warning from the airline or TA at the time of booking might also be appreciated, but neither of them absolves the pax's ultimate responsibility to have the right paperwork prior to their international travel. If one finds China's TWOV rules to be bit arcane (which they are), the proper outlet for complaint is with the Chinese government. However, this doesn't mean that it will respond, let alone read it.

I think airlines and TA absolutely should have updated visa info - and they do, in the form of TIMATIC. But I don't think they need to publish that information against every potential flight booking - it should be for the passenger to ask.

Unfortunately there's plenty of reservation staff that don't know how to use TIMATIC properly... not putting China as a 'transit' for example will incorrectly lead many to getting a visa they don't need.

Considering that the US and Canada require an (excessively expensive) Visa even for mere transit, I'd say it's hard to justify complaints about how limited the chinese TWOV may be.

If you're going to make use of a waiver, then you need to be pretty damn sure you've understood the rules. Even just for transit through any country, check the requirements since some of them require complying with their immigration requirements even if you don't step outside the airport.

That's setting up a straw man. The complaints aren't about the existence of the rule, but about the lack of any official announcement of it, and the existence of official announcements that indicate there'd be no problem with the itinerary.

And if you've ever been in this predicament, you'll understand well and good how difficult it can be to get accurate information on stopover rules.

I recently booked a flight that made a stopover for a couple of hours in a not particularly welcoming country. Did I need a visa for sitting in the airport for 90 minutes while the cabin was cleaned and the plane refueled? Official sites, social media and Timatic weren't completely assuring. The airline's local office didn't know, and they contacted Beijing, who also didn't know, though no doubt someone from the airline would know at check-in. In the end, no problem, but the concern obviously created some tension.

It's so easy to point the finger at the OP saying well, she just didn't try hard enough to get the right information. But that underestimates the difficulty of getting the right information, especially when the official sites provide no clue to it at all.

I'll stand by my earlier advice: unless there are time constraints, Americans and Canadians should forget the hoops and loopholes of TWOV and get the ten-year visa.

Timatic does not take into account special situations. Once a CX SFO checkin agent scanned my daughter's US passport and told her that her passport was expiring in three months, and to be allowed into Hong Kong, her passport would need one-month validity upon leaving Hong Kong. As my daughter still had 2.5 months when leaving HK, he could check her in. I told the checkin agent my daughter has the HKID and she would not be entering HK on US passport. The check-in agent said he only went by the system and would not check her in if the system rejected, and the system did not ask if she possessed a permanent HKID.

Isn't that an issue with the airline system and agent rather than TIMATIC?

TIMATIC states passengers with a HK (SAR) identity card are exempt from passport requirements to enter Hong Kong:

I wasn't aware that some airline systems might be linked to TIMATIC. It doesn't seem to be the case with CX for example who allowed check-in and boarding for a couple of friends in HKG without the correct visa for China.

It is kinda bizarre that a volunteer-run thread on FT has more reliable information on TWOV than any official Chinese website.

CX is Hong Kong-based. I was very surprised that CX (or the agent) did not realize that HKID is also a travel document when used in entering and exiting HK. It is probably CX system. I think they were linked to TIMATIC already (he did not mention TIMATIC but he mentioned IATA). It should also pop up HKID but it didn't on their system.

Just a small correction on your statement - it is HK permanent ID, not just HKID. Although temporary ones can also be used to enter/exit HK, TIMATIC only suggests HK permanent ID because it is difficult to know if a temporary ID has expired.

From the website of Consulate General of China in SF, you can only connect with a valid connecting ticker on an international flight. And the Wuhan - Guangzhou flight is clearly not an international one. And you can get a 72 hrs transit visa at the airport in other cities like Shanghai, it should not allow you to travel to other airports and leave from there.

And Priceline will definitely mention that it's travelers' responsibility to make sure that they have necessary travel documents for the journey.

That's a textbook example of a PRC consulate spreading incorrect information.

Indeed. I have yet to see 144-hour TWOV mentioned on any embassy website either.

And the official websites often keep the verbiage about having to stay in the airport during the transit, which hasn't been correct for years.

http://si.china-embassy.org/eng/lsfw/t1348983.htm

Now you saw one.

China lets in EVERYONE without ANY check, payment, whatsoever, on VERY generous TWOV, in some cases up to a week. With a few rules/special cases that you can easily check on TIMATIC (publicly accessible) - if you can't do that, use a TA that will help you..

Consulate website are NEVER to be trusted. No matter which country from what country - they can be horribly outdated.

Try flying to the US - in fact just flying OVER the US (not even transitting) without getting any PAID "approval", even from countries wealthier than the US..

Off topic, but which countries are wealthier than the US (without resorting to per capita GDP as a yardstick)?

None - but obviously per capita is meant, when talking about Visa/Free Travel.

Liechtenstein or Luxembourg are tiny and will never even have the GDP of, say, Nigeria. Yet their GDP per capita is high. And yes, GDP per capita is - apart from politics - the reason why you'll ask for Visas or not.

After all, someone from Liechtenstein wouldn't want to illegally work/overstay in the US - while someone from a large yet poor country could..

The pure GDP size decides about other things - like how much the country can force through it's interests - but that's not much connected to the Visa issue (otherwise you'd had Singaporeans needing Visas for everywhere :D )

Per capita GNP is the proper yardstick for measuring the wealth of a country.