moondog

You can use it at any checkpoint that has e gates.

travelinmanS

You won’t be able to get approved unless you possess a residence permit for the PRC with more than 6 months validity remaining. I understand from your previous posts that you’re on a visa, not a RP, so you’ll be politely told it’s not possible and sent to the line to get your passport stamped.

moondog

When the program was first offered to foreigners, certain visas (e.g. Z and some F, the predecessor to M) were permitted. Obviously, things are different these days because Z visas are now valid for 30 days only (i.e. you're supposed to convert them to RPs or they will boot you), and business visas aren't held in especially high regard (speculative comment).

Yesterday, I did a bit of googling on this topic in both Chinese and English. RP does, indeed, appear the only legit way to pull it off. That having been said: 1. I didn't find any sources I regarded as fully legit; and 2. I will guarantee you that there is at least one foreigner on a visa who has pulled off eChannel.

GinFizz

That's good to know - thanks! I am leaving for my first trip outside China since Jan 2020 next week, and will need to re-register for e-channel when I return later in June (new passport issued last year).

That is probably a different problem - the issue on exiting China is that (at least at airports) the system is set-up to associate the exit through emigration with a boarding pass. The problem with that is that it requires the name on the boarding pass to match exactly the name entered into the e-channel registration system - so if you have a longish name it is likely that it is truncated on the boarding pass, or maybe the flight is only booked using first and last name, but for e-channel registration they used all names in your passport.

There is a work-around for this - namely to tell the person manning the e-channel gates (there to tell people who don't know to first scan the boarding pass) that you are registered but have a foreign name so need a manual override. At Beijing T3 I had a 100% success rate doing this - at Beijing T2 (only tried twice) they simply refused and told me to use the regular lines.

GinFizz

That's useful to know - thanks. I'll try this next month and will see it if works. I already have an account registered to an old passport, but replaced that passport last year - I will try first though to see if the same thing is possible (use without verification) using my permanent residence card ID.

travelinmanS

They had fixed this problem in 2019 at least at the Shanghai airports. I had no issue using it to exit back then. Unfortunately it seems the relaunch may have brought the problem back.

You’ll definitely need to reregister when you next arrive to China. Or if you’re in Shenzhen you can take care of it at one of the border crossings without leaving China. The airports don’t seem to have this option unfortunately.

moondog

A (foreign) colleague of mine was denied the opportunity to re-enroll at Futian last week; they told him that NONE of the land borders between HK and Shenzhen have enrollment capabilities and that his best course of action would be to fly from HK to PVG and sort things out there. I assume the Futian people were blowing smoke with their "NONE" declaration (i.e. if one of the bigger places had it, and they didn't know, the default answer is "no").

At this point in time, PEK-T3 and PVG-T2 definitely have enrollment capability. Dozens of others presumably do as well, but I've yet to see confirmed reports.

narvik

You've been here since Jan 2020? Wow!

Yeah, definitely some funny business going on somewhere; the name could be it, for sure.
But if I recall correctly, at PEK T3 there was a pre-E-Channel machine you had to first go to and have the passport checked, and it would give you either a YES or NO for your ability to use the E-Channel?
It was at this machine that I used to get a 'NO'.

Am I remembering this wrongly?

tauphi

I just bought three tickets for my family a couple of days ago with no issues. Ironically, my family members' ID status are listed in my account as verified even though I myself am not.

Apparently any ID (including passports and Home Return Permits) that is issued by China will be verified instantaneously. It's only the foreign passports that have to be manually verified at a station. So if you have a permanent residence card you may be able to use that as your account ID and verification should be automatic.

GinFizz

You remember correctly - but incompletely ... 😀
The YES/NO pre-channel check requires both passport and boarding pass scan - that's where things get screwed up if the name on the boarding pass doesn't match exactly the e-channel registered name (usually your full passport name). Even more annoying as the name check is really unnecessary, as boarding pass bar code should contain passport number (I think it does ..), and that could be used instead to verify the link between passport and boarding pass.

And yes - almost three-and-a-half years since I last left China ...! Very excited for this this trip (currently in the Air China lounge waiting for my flight ... Not a big fan though of the new security--train--passport control--customs arrangement).

narvik

Ah, you are so right, yes.
My BP name always matches the passport....or does it? In typical Chinese fashion it may be truncated on the BP and therefore "red flags" it...I'd have to check a BP....okay, not truncated, but missing the space between FIRST and MIDDLE name....maybe that's it?
Passport: LAST FIRST MIDDLE
BP: LAST/FIRSTMIDDLE

Good luck with the trip and enjoy!
Yeah, I am not a fan of the new exit system at PEK either. Hope that's not permanent.

GinFizz

Very envious that you are one of a select few who have a full name that is still short enough to not be truncated on offical documents here in China! But yes, even that extra space is likely to trip things up (annoying also as it is easy enough to strip out spaces from a string for comparison purposes). Let's home that as @travelinmanS says this will be fixed also here in Beijing as well as in Shanghai (it certainly wasn't in Dec 2019 when I last flew out of PEK or Jan 2020 when I flew out of PKX).


Well now I get to enjoy the new system all over again - boarding for the Thai Airways PEK-BKK flight yesterday was delayed 2 hours due to a technical problem, then after boarding they realized the problem was not fixed, so cue another 3 hour wait. Eventually the crew went out-of-hours so we were all herded back through immigration and to the Hilton near the airport. Rebooked today on an Air China flight (onward flight to the UK for the main part of this trip is tomorrow so that should still be okay).

narvik

It does get truncated some places....on the Credit Card I think....last letter missing.
Yeah. I can test next week...providing it's already 'active'; anyone know how long it takes for eChannel to work after signing up?



Ooofff, sorry to hear. Never fun when that happens.

GinFizz

Not sure about how long it takes to work. When e-channel first started there was a requirement to go through the normal channel twice (I think so that your fingerprints were taken a few times) before it was active. I am reasonably sure though that they stopped that, so you should be good to go next week.

And some good news is maybe that it will work - as today I had a good view of the e-channel as I went through passport control, and I could see that the boarding pass scan was no longer being used (just someone checking boarding pass name against passport manually before being allowed into the e-gates. Hope in any case that it works!

Kilian Zoll

Could anyone confirm (or better yet, have personal experience) if this is correct regarding the visa policy for Hainan?

Visa Exemptions:

Nationals of X with a normal passport arriving at Haikou (HAK) or Sanya (SYX) for a maximum stay of 30 days. They must:
- have a passport valid for a minimum of 6 months from the arrival date; and
- have at least 1 unused visa page in the passport; and
- stay only in Hainan province; and
- have a confirmed hotel reservation; and
- have a return/onward ticket for an international flight from Haikou (HAK) or Sanya (SYX).

I've read somewhere that you still need some kind of certificate from a "Hainan based travel agency" but not sure if that's still the case?

The info is from https://www.united.com/en/us/timatic/