copying from Sinocism

Delta outbreaks

Comment: The Nanjing outbreak is still growing, local officials are under a lot of pressure for poor epidemic prevention, and now there are cases traced to tourists in Zhangjiajie, Hunan. The outbreak traced to Zhangjiajie is likely grim news for the PRC tourism industry. With the entrance of the delta variant don't be surprised if we see a lot less domestic travel than expected now through the October 1 National Day holiday, especially with the 6th Plenum coming up, probably in October/November.

More places enhance steps amid new Nanjing outbreak - Global Times
Other cities in Jiangsu are reinforcing anti-pandemic measures. Suzhou has set up 18 highway checkpoints to check the health status of drivers coming from Nanjing. Suzhou has also suspended all passenger road transportation, including buses and taxis, with Nanjing...

According to media reports, seven cases recently detected in Dalian, Liaoning and Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan recently had attended a same show in Zhangjiajie, Central China's Hunan Province, on July 22.

Among the seven cases, three discovered in Dalian had transferred at the Lukou Airport on July 17.

Zhangjiajie has screened for close contacts of those who attended the show, put them under quarantine, and collected their nucleic acid samples for testing.
Nanjing airport to suspend all fights till August 11 to stop Delta variant transmission: source - Global Times
An anonymous insider told the Global Times on Wednesday that Nanjing Lukou International Airport, the transmission source of China’s latest resurgence of the Delta variant that has forced Nanjing city to a de-facto shutdown, will suspend all air flights till August 11.

The insider said the airport began to cut the number of flights in and out of the airport from July 26, including flights in and out of Nanjing. Also, international flights will be cancelled till August 11.

I was checking September US-China flights today, and noticed that MU is selling LAX-PVG for $1200 in economy and $2400 in business on many dates, both of which are great deals compared to everything else on offer. However YariGuy warned me that this flight doesn't exist now and there's no telling when it will actually resume.

Is MU selling it directly or is a 3rd party “selling it”

The links I saw were third parties via Kayak (Priceline plus one other). I don't think I've ever bought a ticket directly from MU; my gut tells me that they actually want people to use OTAs (otherwise, they would put minimal effort into making their own channels somewhat attractive).

Ok yeah the agencies have all kinds of bogus flight options. Ignore them.

I fly on MU a lot, always book with agents, and have never had any issues. MU is definitely selling LAX for September onwards, but this is no guarantee that the flights will operate. Apparently, if they provide sufficient notice of cancellations their rebooking obligations are minimal.

Lots of airlines selling lots of cheap flights. You can buy them if you want to give an interest free loan to MU but those flights are cheap for a reason....they ain't flying.

you forgot about 5 ones. MU is handling JFK to PVG so no way they are allowed to fly between LAX and China.

The five 1 rule has been relaxed some time ago.

The chart that travelinmanS posted in 681 suggests that CA has two US routes.

DL does as well. But those routes are on the chart because they are approved. LAX-PVG is not approved, not on the chart and not flying in September.

Good luck getting back...hope the trip home is going well.

Can you buy a MU ticket from DL? That might give you some protection if the flight is cancelled. [You might need to call and it would help to have a domestic DL flight on the same ticket.]

that certainly is breaking news to me.

Before the airlines cut flights, CA, CZ, MU, and HU had three US routes each.

If it is pre-Covid, some of them had more than 3 routes.
Just think of Air China: PEK-JFK/EWR/LAX/SFO/IAH/HNL/IAD

I forgot how many CA had, but figured 3 was a safe number to apply to all.

Hearing any updates on this? I checked the news, didn't see anything of note...
Sounds like boosters are being recommended in the US nowadays. Wondering if it would be better to get a Pfizer (aka BioNTech) or a Chinese vaccine ...

I heard ranging from tomorrow to Q4 but with cases spike up domestically, hopefully it is sooner than later.

On which one to take, I have done both. I just read somewhere that Singapore just announced mixing both if one chooses to take both in full or for booster.
My view is don't delay. Take it still better than not taking it. Take one and see how antibody develops in your body and see if you need to redo with a different type of just as booster. Each body reacts different to different vaccine.

I'm still in the US so I haven't been keeping up to date on this stuff, but I'm happy that I got Sinopharm before I left because the Chinese are obviously cool with it.

I also got Pfizer here (second dose tomorrow).

On a related note, I'm getting closer and closer to attempting to fly back via Thailand. If I take the plunge, I'll apply for an actual Thai visa which would give me up to 90 days to sort things out over there, plus something more real than an entry stamp to show the PRC consulate. I'm also in no rush to do the quarantine drill.

I did Moderna a pretty long time ago so this could be my "booster" haha.

From what I understand Sinopharm (https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/5/) and Sinovac (https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/7/) are both 2 dose.
CanSino (https://covid19.trackvaccines.org/vaccines/2/) seems to be one dose:
Argentina: 7 day quarantine
Chile: non residents cannot enter
Ecuador: seems to be rolling out https://www.elcomercio.com/tendencia...n-ecuador.html
Hungary: I did some poking around and they seem to be giving Sinopharm instead
Malaysia: non residents cannot enter
Mexico: might be possible
Pakistan: need >6 month visa but seems doable Pakistan rolls out locally produced Chinese CanSino vaccine - Xinhua | English.news.cn

I believe you’d need to fly directly from the USA in order to be approved for the HDC code that gets you into China. So by all means go enjoy Thailand for 3 months (although I doubt it’s enjoyable at the moment) but don’t count on it being a route back into the Middle Kingdom. If you want back in here you need to fly from the USA.

Interesting. Better email / call the Chinese embassy in Thailand to see if they will issue a green code for non-Thai citizens. If you're in no hurry, you can enter Thailand via their Sandbox scheme - no quarantine! Just stay in a combination of Phuket / Samui / Krabi for 14 days and you're free to roam about the country.

Thailand would mean the sandbox for you?

The Thailand PRC consulate issues green codes and its website specifically says visas meet the residency requirement. I plan on calling them to confirm though, and will happily jump through more hoops.

There are several threads about the sandboxes, and they seem a lot more appealing than hanging out inside a room at a 7 days inn for 2+ weeks. Plus, I can fly one stop from JFK to HKT in biz class for less coin than Y on UA, DL, or Chinese airlines. (AA isn't really an option because people like us still aren't getting green codes from the DC consulate.)

Btw I realize that the Thailand thing wouldn't spare me of quarantine in China, but I'd probably be arriving in better spirits v UA858.

The notice I see on the Chinese embassy in Bangkok’s website seems to say if your country has a direct flight to China they won’t issue you the green code from Thailand. Maybe you’re right though as my Chinese isn’t good enough to understand it fully.

I would definitely be interested to hear if this is an option because as you say, the flight from Thailand after a month or two in Phuket sounds much better than UA 857.

Jeez the website is terrible. Most of the information is from like 2013. I was able to find this information though, from Oct. 30, 2020:



"Based on virus prevention requirements of Beijing, direct flights to Beijing are limited to Chinese citizens and citizens of the local country [Thailand]. Other nationalities are strictly prohibited from transiting here to enter Beijing"

Source: ?????????????????????????????????????

So old info, but at least back then seems like if you're not flying to Beijing it might be ok? BTW the same page says you'll need to get that blood serum test and it has to be negative, which isn't gonna happen nowadays with the vaccine.

I saw that but the one I was referring to was ????????????/?????????????? an announcement dated this month which says this:　　（二）如拟入境泰国后乘航班赴华　　

　　1、如始发国有直航赴华航班，有关旅客应搭乘直航航班赴华。我馆将不为此类乘客发放健康码，如当事人已 抵泰，须退回始发国，重新搭乘直航航班赴华。　　

　　2、如始发国无直航赴华航班，确需入境泰国中转赴华的，应遵循“只转一次”原则，从始发国搭乘直航航班 来泰，并从泰国搭乘直航航班赴华。乘客须向驻始发国的中国使领馆申请健康码，并凭该健康码截图、泰国检测机 构出具的核酸和血清抗体检测报告、来泰签证页及机票行程单等材料向我馆申请健康码。如无始发国健康码，我馆 将不予审发赴华健康码。　　

Ah you're right. Nice how they don't replace the old page with this one or at least point to it...

This page at least addresses the vaccine issue. And the part you quote is clear enough, but it's mainly addressed towards transfers the way I read it. It still doesn't address the issue of non-Thai foreigners who are Thai residents or aren't transferring. Better call them Moondog.

There is no doubt that a direct transit is forbidden and you won't get a green code. The grey area is when do you stop being a transit passenger and start being a resident. Clearly they're not forbidding all third-country tourist visa holders from entering China, e.g., if you hold a tourist visa in Australia and are travelling from Australia to China you will get a green code. The question is how many days do you have to spend in the third country for you to move from the transit side of the line over to the resident side, nobody really knows the answer but hopefully moondog will find out for us where the line is at least as far as Thailand is concerned.

Right. Also, does the visa type matter? If you enter on a sandbox COE (certificate of entry, they call it), do you need to change your status to something else to qualify for a green code?

Is there a good way of seeing what direct flights are operating to China right now in the near future?

Since many flights are sold out, it's been hard to find availability and space because of the capacity restrictions.

Follow “Expat Focus” on wechat. They post the flight list updates every month. The latest update was July 27th. Once you follow their account you can scroll down to see the article that contains this list.

As far as I can see each and every UA and DL flight to China for the coming months has plenty of seats.

Another one to follow is HeyExpat

Why is moondog suspended?

also, a return flight from Shanghai to NYC are pricing at $70K USD one way for business class. Damn!

I don’t know why MU has such ridiculous pricing. Perhaps they have lower fares from Chinese travel agents. Anyhow reasonably (for the time) priced trips are all available through LAX, SEA and SFO.

Any suggested routes? Guessing HK is not an option for a non Chinese citizen?

When are you looking to travel?

might have been a pricing error... i.e. RMB

According to Cathay at least, you can subject to various restrictions transit in HK from but not to the Mainland. No mention of any citizenship restriction.

https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_...trictions.html

The banning of transit passengers via HKG to mainland China was imposed in early 2020, as HKG would be a loophole to the five one rule.