It was reported that Blinken planned to raise the 10-year visa issue when he visited Beijing, and I half-expected Beijing to offer reinstatement of the visas as a sop to him. I guess that's now off the table.

Tit-for-tat: US suspends all pre March 2020 visas. PRC requires US citizens to show up for interviews.

Here is my current SOP:
1. Identify <wherever>-<cx gateway airport>-hkg-<somewhere in China (pretty long list, tbh) fare that is upgradeable with Asia Miles AT THAT TIME
2. Xfer ~25k AMEX to CX, and get everything done within 10 minutes
3. Stop obsessing about what UA should or shouldn't charge, or how it is trying to game us

To repeat, the US normally requires interviews only for the first visa, not renewals, and the renewal can be done by courier.

https://www.asiamiles.com/en/redeem-...ard-chart.html
To clarify, this means this upgrades a paid Y+ to J that's 5,001-7,500 miles long? Does it upgrade all segments or just the long segment?
Eg. SFO-HKG-PVG is 6927 miles and 779 miles, does it upgrade only the first segment?

UA is still charging us “arms-and-legs.” Perhaps, UA spares us the smallest toes now. 😂😂😄😄
Have a good journey to China.

Question: Person coming from Singapore, flying to Macao, 2N (over 48hrs), then continue to the PRC.

Currently required an ART test in Singapore and a PCR in Macao, correct?

Hope they soon make away with those testing requirements.. (at least for fully vaxxed travellers)

It appears that you can only upgrade from Y to Premium Y on CX using Asian miles.

If you upgrade from Premium Y to business, it's going to be very expensive.

Longer flight requires more than 25K miles. JFK-HKG needs 48K miles, almost double 25K.

I guess I forgot to mention upgrade from PE (so 25k miles for west coast and 28k from east coast). I don't find CX pe to be especially expensive (e.g. BOS-PVG was only $1100 last month).

CX PE could be VERY expensive.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...de07eced3c.jpg


This looks like a terrible deal.

For BOS-HKG-PVG, the lowest PE fare in Feb. and March is $2,200 EACH way.

Of course, they often charge a hub premium (don't almost all airlines do this?). Tack on a PVG leg (that you could easily no show for) and the price drops by $5,000.
Right, they're not pricing aggressively at this point in time.

ETA: I suppose I should also point that for much of the past two years, $2200 would have been considered a great price for BOS-PVG in PE.

Going back again to China within a few weeks. just doing EWR-SFO-PVG in E with PlusPoints upgrades to J requested. We'll see how that goes...really hoping for ERW-PEK to start!


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Not sure if already posted (probably has), but United mentions a tourist visa-on-arrival for Shenzhen for max. 5 days:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...cec86dfc97.png

Yes, officially that's the case but I haven't heard of anyone who's tried it yet.

Note that it's a very expensive option for Americans, who pay over US$150 for the Shenzhen visa.

What do people think the chances are, of China still requiring PCR tests at the end of April?

That's $210 (CVS or Walgreens) that we simply have to factor into the equation for the time being.

ETA: By way of comparison, the 2021 drill entailed: a three day stay in the Bay Area, going to one of five approved testing places, and handing over $500 to have our nostrils violated. This was merely a prelude for fun times ahead.