海关 is Customs. Maybe 公安 will work.

I realize that, but all of the registration MPs I currently have saved contain 海关 somewhere in their titles.

In my experience out of roughly 20 police stations, only one asked for a lease contract, etc, and I had to call 12345 to resolve it. All others did it within 5 minutes once I gave them the address, passport, and phone number, and were super nice and friendly.

The thing about locals having to be registered is that the property owner has to report to the local PSB who is staying in (and not that they have to register when they come back from overseas) and from what I understand every city has different systems (from the IT point of view) whereby in some cities the actual app is the same for foreginers and locals and in some cities there are two distinct systems. Some local apartment bosses showed me the systems and they are confusing as hell :D

For me as someone who cares about having no problems in the long term with the country I prefer to overprotect and just do the registration anyways and while technically you need to do it at every place where you spend >24 hours, it is the first one after the entry that is crucial.

Good tips, thanks! I didn't find anything for Yanbian/Yanji, but I'm very bad at searching for stuff in Chinese (translation and copy/paste is my only way).

Well, hopefully the owner of the homestay will do the registration properly. I'm just curious to see if there is an easy online backup.

Good to hear!

Sharing my experience of handling a schedule change for a ticket purchased through Trip.com.

I maintain a policy of booking directly with airlines unless there is a huge price difference. However, sometimes the difference is too much to ignore, and I take the risk knowing that there can be hassles when there are flight schedule changes.

• I bought a ticket for two connecting flights. Some months later, there was a schedule change which saw the flight date being delayed by one day (23 hours). The route doesn't operate daily and the new date didn't suit. It would work for me to fly 2 days earlier.
• Their self-service rebooking allowed rebooking +/-1 day of original date which meant I couldn't rebook it myself.
• First chat agent also said that rebooking was +/-1 day only. Kuwait Airways said their policy is +/- 7 days for a schedule change of this magnitude.
• Second and third agent confirmed it is +/-7 days and lodged the change for me. For some reason the change was cancelled (they later explained it was due to the airline's request to hold off in case of further schedule changes).
• Fourth agent didn't want to get into the permissible date change period but re-requested the change for me.
• At that time, I was frustrated enough to start a new chat to initiate a complaint. There was no separate complaint phone number or email so all I could do was initiate one through their regular chat. To my surprise, they were really sympathetic and escalated it quickly with an apology received within 24h with a USD15 credit to my account. They also confirmed the correct +/- 7 day delay.
• The change was finalised a few days later, delayed due to the airline's request to hold off because they were in the midst of further substantial schedule changes.

OVERALL:

Cons:

• Variable customer service experience for handling schedule change rebooking.

Pros:

• Very cheap prices not obtainable directly from the airline.
• Pretty good escalation and complaints process.
• Chatbot passes me to live chat quickly. No waiting for live chat in all instances, serviced once in English and other times in Japanese or Indonesian with live translation (impressive technology)
• The date change request was trackable with estimated completion time being updated a few times. Got the assurance that it was being managed rather than forgotten.

What do you reckon? Was my experience worse or better than yours?

Why didn't you call them? It's much more efficient than chat and the agents are more useful (I wouldn't necessarily say more knowledgeable, but they can do more things, and escalate to bigger fish, if needed).

IMO/IME their customer service (over the phone) is better than every other OTA I've used, as well as most airlines and hotel groups. In fact, I'd even pay a small premium to book with them instead of directly with sketchy airlines.

I like things in writing. They were able to review my interactions when they reviewed my complaint. I know that conversations are recorded and they would have reviewed it too, probably. Perhaps, just my preference.

And definitely, when it comes to Chinese airlines, I prefer Trip.com over Chinese airlines' websites which are rather hopeless.

But my mixed experience with them means that I would still book direct if dealing with airlines that I know well.

They send you tons of emails that are far better organized than chat transcripts if you initiate contact by phone or move onto phone after giving up on chat.

Even though off topic here in the Trip thread, I thought I would update on my experience on police address registration. I had booked an apartment through Trip.com. It was listed as a Homestay on Trip and I knew there was no reception.

After getting the host's Wechat with the help of Trip's customer service I asked the host if they would do police address registration on our behalf. They said that it's not required for B&B. I said I think it is but that I will do it myself instead.

After arriving and checking in I went to the nearest police station. It was the wrong police station.

- "You stay on the other side of the river, you should go to this other police station".

After a short Didi ride I'm told this is also the wrong police station.

- "No, we handle the area on this side of the river, you need to go to this other police station" (This is another river than the first one!)
- "Are you sure, police station X told me to go here and that other police station is so far away?"
- "Yes sure, but go tomorrow instead." (As time was getting close to 5pm I guess it was a good suggestion).

At the third police station the next morning they confirm that I'm at the correct place. They understood what I wanted to do, I think (all communication is through translation apps), and it seemed like they started some process on their computer. Or they were only looking up information, who knows. However, after some discussion between the police officers, and verifying with me that I only stayed for a short time, they said that registration was not required. I asked again to verify, pointing to the arrival card stub where it says as the first point that foreigners who "reside or stay in domiciles other than hotels" shall go through "the registration formalities with the public security organs in the places of residence". The officer confirmed that registration was neither possible nor required and said that I should only do registration if I'm renting an apartment for a long time.

OK I thought, can't do more than this. Anyhow, no one mentioned anything about improper address registration when going through exit procedures at immigration and, fingers crossed, it won't cause any other problems in the future.

What city was that? Electronic registration is the norm in most tier-1 and tier-2 cities. You can still go to the PSB if you prefer, though.

Yanji!

Yes, you have to register with the actual station that is responsible for that area, others cant do it.

This is an apt place to mention the "stay at a hotel for night 1 because they can do it on your behalf" strategy. Even if you don't stay there, think of it $30 to avoid the PSB drill.

Which I did in the end, but the correct station couldn't (wouldn't?) do it.

Agree! Mental note for future trips.

Sounds like incompetence on their end.

I only had a problem with one station, and the rest would do it seamlessly in like 5 minutes upon showing them the adress and the passport. That said I did not tell them it's an airbnb or something, and they did never asked.

Btw, In Shanghai, i stayed at a friend's house and so did the online registration (it was my first night after arriving) and it was approved on the spot. The police then came to friend's house like 3 days later when I was long gone and they then called me and asked where am I etc. Was not a problem, but its just intresting.