Hi,
I hope I'm ok to ask for a bit of advice here. I used to be a regular poster here but now haven't flown for getting on for 3 years!
I'm travelling from London to Tokyo via Shanghai and so far have tickets booked on BA to Shanghai on a companion voucher. I now need to buy onward flights, and my preference is JAL I think. I understand bookings can't be linked so in case of missed flights I'd be on my own I presume - is 3 hours enough in Shanghai? My inbound flight is BA 169 arriving 09.10 and I was considering the 12.10 JAL departure, though its from a different terminal. The BA flight seems to be generally on time, but of course nothing can be guaranteed...

I see that you can transit Shanghai Visa free. Is this process speedy?

Thanks for any advice members can offer.

I haven't done this myself yet, but am strongly considering it for the same route in the future, so will watch with interest.

One thing I have picked up on is that, while there is a TWOV (transit without visa) program in place for China, it seems you can be denied this if your layover isn't long enough (below about 7hrs?)

Others with direct experience will have better information.

the other snag could be if younare only booked on one ticket to china there could be issues proving you don't need a chinese visa. There have been reports of this type of issue on journeys with separate tickets where a visa would be required to enter the 'transit' country. There was a lengthy thread about a jnb flight

While Noel Philips may not be many flyers cup of tea, he recently transited several Chinese airports on the SAS Challenge and was less than complimentary on the hassles (many with security and papers), speed (or lack there of) and efficiency (ditto) of Chinese airports. YMMV.

I literally did something like this yesterday...

LHR (BA) -> PVG (CX) -> HKG with a 2.5hr transfer at PVG on the same booking. They couldn't interline my bags even though it was on the same booking and at the same PVG terminal.

I would not recommend it if possible. There shouldn't be any issues with visa as they will let you enter Shanghai visa-free for the transfer but you will be at the whim of the queues at immigration on both entry to Shanghai and exit as well as the long security queues. I barely made it to the gate on time even though I was the 1st person off the BA plane and my bags came out almost immediately, the immigration queue going back airside after dropping my bags was really slow and I only made it because I managed to skip the long security queue after I showed one of the airport staff my gate was about to board when at the back of the security line.

While no guarantee of who you'll deal with on the day/desk, I did phone BA and ask them this exact question, and they confirmed having a ticket for onward travel, even if non-interline, was evidence enough for them.

separate tickets are fine for TWOV

These will be very limited data points, but hopefully with the experience of others you can add it to get a bigger picture and assess the risks.

I've travelled to China with BA twice this year - both times in WTP, so off the aircraft ahead of most of the plane. I was travelling on a visa.

13th April to Beijing Daxing - BA89 - at least a 90 minute queue at immigration. Almost every passenger being asked lots of questions. Multiple minutes to process.
11th June to Shanghai- BA169 - no queue, straight to a desk. No questions - passport stamped and admitted. Less than a minute.

Neither of these timings include going through the initial fingerprint scan or filling in the immigration form. Again, Shanghai was the better organised in terms of form availability and space to complete it. Have your pen ready!

Don't forget you also need to allow for China customs clearance. Both my experiences have been fairly quick, with Shanghai again the slightly shorter of the two, but it's not the walk-through affair you'll find in Europe - lots of bags are x-rayed as a minimum, and you'll certainly want to build-in a few minutes

To clarify, my concern and reason for asking them wasn't over what the rules were, it was over BA's understanding of them and how to evidence compliance at check in.

ah ok. well i can add that i haven't had an issue with BA when doing TWOV on separate tickets. your evidence of compliance will be printed copies of any onward ticket from China to the third country which you will show to the agent.

I did this coming the other way, on separate tickets from JAL to BA. I had roughly a three hour option or six hour option, and following advice from here went for the six hours. The queues to both enter and exit china were fine, and I�d have easily done the shorter connection. However, the prospect of getting stuck in Shanghai would probably mean I�d book the longer one again. It may have changed, but my memory is that lounges are average, Cathay one was best, but the generic one which BA also had access to does have a shower, which you�ll want after arriving from London.

I had a printed boarding pass for next flight and was hang baggage only. If you have bags, you might not be able to check in for JAL until 2/3 hours before.

China relaxed its visa free option for UK passport holders on 17 December 2024 to allow 10-day trips with fewer restrictions on leaving the entry-point city. Details here: https://english.www.gov.cn/news/2024...f4e8ee0c1.html

Yes, not forgetting the over zealous security checks

Visa Free Transit can go two ways (I did it 4 times last year, twice in Shanghai). Once in Shanghai we walked basically straight through. The second time, queued for 2 hours. Basically, it's unreliable. It's not hard though assuming you have the documents although it's not always well signposted and you often find yourself filling out multiple forms because you haven't done the 'right' one.

Three hours is in my view too short for a self connect. The immigration queues are very variable, you could be through in minutes, it could take hours. Should be no issue for TWOV to be granted with a definite onward flight connection unless you have done something to not comply with China immigration/law previously.

The issues where people have been denied TWOV entry for shorter transits (less than 8 ISH hours) are mainly to do with having no real excuse for why you need to leave the airport and you could stay airside. Having an onward flight to catch where you can't stay airside, or other reasonable excuse to enter the country e.g. a hotel room booked or timed/dated booking for a tourist attraction can help justify shorter transit entries.