travelinmanS

Just a public service announcement for anyone who is considering coming over to China for work or a critical business trip in the near future. Do not come. I say that as a long term expat who generally loves living in China.

Until China changes their zero Covid policy there is no way I would recommend anyone come here minus a family emergency. The job you think is great, the money you think you’ll make, it isn’t worth it.

The line of people heading for the exits can only be getting longer after this stuff. It’s a shame.

moondog

The past ~5 days have definitely been --for lack of a better word-- interesting. On the one hand, I give the authorities props for their ability to mobilize a small army of snowmen in order to test all of us...multiple times. On the other hand, it doesn't appear that they sufficiently thought things through in advance. Since they don't know what's going on, we sure as hell don't.



I agree with your observation that, apart from public transit, the test queues are, somewhat ironically, the most likely places to contract Covid.

Everywhere else is a lot like the pictures in the following article.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/oYQqzaoAOCB9zma46TEpIw

Cotton Candy Lobster

Even with a vaccination rate of about 90 percent, in a country of 1.4 billion people that still leaves quite a large pool of participants for a clinical trial.

kb1992

I have a saver Y award booked at 35K miles on SFO-PVG May 8. Expect to clear upgrade to J using PP.

This beats 250K Y award or 600K J award, standard on this flight by a mile.

I hope that situation in China would improve in 2 months.

Otherwise, I am seriously considering to abandon this ticket.

As you agree, it's no fun in China now. Insane zero COVID policy.

moondog

I'm honestly optimistic that the current extreme insanity we're experiencing in Shanghai will settle down within a week or two. By way of analogy, I'm reminded of (extremely) premature product launches. There are A LOT of bugs in the current release, and the "company" is clearly learning on the fly. The thing is, even their most egregious mistakes can seemingly be remedied by employing sensible tweaks.

I highly doubt that zero-Covid is going to disappear within the next two months. However, if things return to the same level of "normal" we had just 6 days ago, I think you'll be able to have an enjoyable trip. Of course, I could be wrong, but you have nothing to lose by holding onto your ticket and making the final call close in.

travelinmanS

Absent a complete change of policy the situation here will continue to deteriorate. Covid zero whilst battling Omicron is a nightmare for anyone caught in the middle.

As moondog says you can keep your ticket right up until the day of before you cancel but I can’t see wanting to go through whatever you’d need to go through to get into China as being worth it unless you’re visiting a sick or dying family member.

China will be here for visiting once this madness is over, until then I would advise giving it a wide berth even at the risk of losing a screaming mileage ticket deal.

kb1992

I heard that +7 quarantine hotel policy (unless you have a residence in Shanghai) is already canceled by Shanghai authority. The reason: short of yellow code hotels.

It is insane to quarantine someone who already have gone through multiple negative tests over 14 day period. The risk is so much lower than current population in Shanghai. Simply a waste of quarantine resources.

It is my hope that PRC Embassy and Consulates in the US would also cancel the stupid 7 day departure city requirement. It serves no viable purpose other than making your life miserable.

I also hold Sept. 1 return saver Y award at 35K miles and got upgrade confirmed PVG-SFO-EWR.

With this 7-day departure policy, I'll need to cancel 7 days before my flight SFO-PVG.

Otherwise I need to fly to SFO 7 days in advance and go through this messy 4 tests process.

Not sure when this madness will be over in China. Most optimistic view is November when the emperor gets re-elected again.

Loren Pechtel

I think it will come down to when the logistics reaches the point they can't handle it anymore. They do not seem to be able to ring-fence sufficiently, collapse seems inevitable to me.

UA_Flyer

That was one of the tipping point for me to leave China. 7 days (SFO), 14+7(Shanghai) and another 7 (at Beijing or other cities) = 35 days.

YariGuy

That's the tipping point for me to stay in China.

To expound, if returning is a must, then that's a big incentive to put off any trips out of China until this policy changes, painful as it might be. Oftentimes these days it's trading off different levels of pain. During my 6 days of lockdown that just ended last night, I was almost tipped to get out of China (even while locked down, neighborhood committee will allow me to leave to go to PVG to leave the country).

steveb1955

was told yesterday that my +7 due to start friday was cancelled, spent all of today trying to find a way out of Shanghai back to handan, managed to book a ticket on the train for saturday morning....

According to the notice of the district team of the Municipal Prevention and Control Office, the entry personnel will be released for 14 days immediately, leaving the isolation point on their own, and no longer arranging closed-loop transfer to the transportation hub or yellow code hotel. The staff will contact you in advance at the time of release.

travelinmanS

Good luck getting out of shanghai.

narvik

I am about to leave China....hopefully.
Trying to do: Beijing-Shanghai with train; Shanghai-PVG with Didi/Taxi; PVG-AKL on NZ.
Not sure if that is even possible??

For the return back to China, it will largely depend on what the +7 and what the 7 in Beijing will look like.
On my trip to China in November 21, it was:
- 3 nights (SFO) ----> mini holiday, and some sightseeing
- 14 nights Shanghai isolated hotel ----> pretty horrible
- 7 nights Shanghai city hotel ----> nice holiday & sightseeing, a lot of bicycling around
- 7 nights Beijing apartment ----> getting ready for work doing some prep stuff, not too bad as I could still go out, and drive and ride around

I was totally fine with this, although a LOT of wasted time of course. Tried to make the most of it, and overall it was an okay experience, HOWEVER, I am not sure I'd feel the same way doing this a second time, a third...etc. etc.

travelinmanS

Why aren’t you flying directly to PVG for this transfer? The way the situation is now in Shanghai I would not be risking a cross city cab ride after a train ride. Normally I’d be all for a move like that but at the moment minimizing any risk of getting caught in whatever is going on in shanghai should be goal #1.

narvik

Yeah, good point. I've had a terrible track-record with flights to/from Shanghai due to significant delays. Maybe fly into PVG the night before?