I rarely fill out departure cards in flight unless I'm exceptionally bored because it's a foregone conclusion that I will lose them before my next exit.

Filling out a paper card is stone age.
Where's the mobile app for the card to produce a qr code to scan from the phone.
Set up express lane for that.

Would you mind starting a thread about this, jiejie? A friend of mine did this drill last summer, wrote a trip report at my behest (I read it; it sounded like a miserable experience), but never got around to putting it online.

IIRC, he flew to Erlian from NAY in the morning, took a taxi to the border, crossed it (easy), and had to pack himself in the back of a truck with farm animals and wait for 3 hours in order to return to China. At that point, his choices were to: 1) share a taxi with 3 other people back to BJ; or 2) spend the night in a crappy hotel, and fly out the next morning (there are no afternoon/evening flights). He opted for the latter.

His primary goal was to save money, but I'm pretty sure that a quick turn in Korea would have cost him less. My question is: what's the point?

I pose this question now because I need to reset my visa during the course of the next 8 days, and have been contemplating the Mongolia option, due to shear curiosity (i.e. how bad could it possibly be?). Option B is HK, which wouldn't cost me (personally) a dime because I have some business to attend to down there within the course of the next 30 days (i.e. I can do that trip anytime).

I just wish that MU would actually bother to hand the arrival/departure card (or at least the arrival one) on flight. In that flight they didn't give anything, so everyone was rushing to the little desk to get and fill their cards... we thought (mistakenly thought had read so somewhere) that don't need it for transit, so just went on ahead.

You'll be fine. Even I sometimes have trouble finding the corresponding exit stamp for a given entry stamp in my passport and that certainly hasn't caused any angst with the border people.

I suspect your adventure is mostly down to the fact that you're doing it at SHA, which sees a lot less A-B-C international transfer passengers than PVG, as the only international destinations there are Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Interesting. In 10 years of going in and out of China, I have never lost a departure card yet. It's not a tragedy if I did lose it, but at times already having it (with only the departure method/flight left to fill in) saves me time since on the way to the exit Immigration queues, I can slalom around and ahead of passengers who have to first head for the desks with the stacks of empties.

Ask and you shall receive. I will post a detailed play-by-play sometime today. Three points:
1) There are more transport options than you identify.
2) There are no flights to Erlian from NAY and in 2011 that was also the case. Only one daily flight in the morning from PEK T1, goes up and back on Capital Airlines (formerly Deer).

3) The Mongolian border run is absolutely cheaper than a turn to Korea and definitely for a US passport holder. THAT's the point. You can do the border run, round-trip, for under USD$100 and 24 hours door to door from your Beijing home. While a round-trip flight to Korea could be done faster, it certainly would cost a LOT more if paying out of pocket, or if using miles and having to pay air ticket taxes and fees. And who wants to fly to Korea just to turn around and fly right back, without at least spending a couple of days in Seoul or something?

ETA: While I'll provide the PbP, I recommend that you not use this option at this time of year due to the cold up there. If you have to go to HK anyway and won't be out of pocket for that trip, do that if you can schedule it in time. Save the Mongo border run experience for April-September.

I helped him buy his plane ticket, and I'm 99.9% sure there was a flight from NAY (on KN, of course) on the schedule at the time of his trip, even though he ended up flying from PEK in the end (cheaper).

I have a feeling you are misremembering something, and that 0.1% comes into play here. But if you were correct in your recollection, any KN flight was sporadic and short-lived. For the last couple of years, I've checked the Erlian flight option pretty regularly (usually every 6 weeks or so online) just to keep tabs on it, and I've never seen a KN flight from NAY on the schedule at any time. In fact, the Deer Air (now renamed Capital Airlines) is the only flight that's been on the regular commercial schedule in the last couple of years. Previous inquiries to ctrip and elong by me confirmed this.

At any rate, we should take this discussion elsewhere, on the border run thread which I'll start soon and do the originating post. We are getting off track on this thread, which is for Chinese visa discussion. Thanks.

Quick question -- I was reading some of the earlier posts and just want to make sure for 2012 in case anything has changed. Once I apply and get my visa, will be a tourist visa, how far in advance get I get my visa? I will be traveling in July... I guess I am confused how long is it good for. Does it matter which length/type visa I get?

Thanks!

This post in the sticky thread is up to date and has the answers to all of your questions. :)

I did a transit without visa yesterday in PEK. No need for a departure/arrival card at all (I had completed it but didn't use it- will use it tomorrow). It was very straightforward and took about 25 minutes from the time I was off the plane to the time I was in the Air China lounge.

Just for other readers: this experience may not be constant at PEK or at transits through other Chinese airports. Within the last 3 weeks, I've had reports from PEK and 1-2 other airports from intl transit passengers that were told filling out the card was not required, only to get to the immigration desk and have one demanded of them. This may depend on which officer is manning the desk, and it may be more likely at an incoming terminal that does not have dedicated desks for international transit passengers. My advice for those transiting is to take a card when passed out on the arriving flight, fill it in with purpose as "transit" in the box-check area, and address in China as "international transit only" and not filling in a visa number (especially if you have a single-entry that you are saving for a later visit). Then if you are asked for it, you have it and if not, nothing lost except 2 minutes of your time on the plane.

Excellent plan.

Thanks for reminding folks to go to the sticky. It's there for a reason. ;)

Ahhh yes, thanks for that! Sorry for not looking there first :) Great informaton