meerkatani

My mom ran into a problem and I'm wondering if anyone could help.

My mom was supposed to fly from Lax to Tpe with a transfer at Guangzhao last Friday on China Southern airline on a skymile business award ticket. She was denied at check in because she doesn't have the special visa that is required for Taiwanese citizens to transfer at any Chinese airport. (We did call the airline ahead of time, and they said that she wouldn't need the visa...)

Anyway, she was instructed to obtain the visa ASAP and then call back to see if they have any seats left. She did exactly that, but was then told that the award ticket was ticketed by Delta, so she should therefore go to Delta. I haven't talked to Delta yet, but I'm wondering if anyone could offer any help or advice as to what we should do. I don't know if delta would give my mom seats or even credit her mileage back. To make things worse, my brother is also traveling with my mom. Hes a US citizen so he didn't need the visa, but he has a genetic condition that he couldnt travel alone. We would really appreciate any help.

happydad100

I would contact Delta and ask them to rebook the ticket (at no charge and with the same miles) for a future date after she will have the VISA (I would try and have a specific date in mind before calling Delta). Your possible leverage is the VISA issue. Or .. contact Delta and ask for a refund of the miles (again leveraging the VISA issue) and then rebook for a later date once you have the VISA.

Others may have ideas also ..

Good luck

fti

This is unfortunate. My initial research shows that a Taiwanese national should not need a transit visa if in China for under 24 hours. In any case, this is something you should have checked with the Chinese consulate and not only the airline. I would also have gotten something in writing about it.

In any case, now you are at the mercy of Delta and China Southern. I am sure they will each blame each other. With Delta's 72-hour cancellation rule, good luck in trying to get your miles back or rebooking.

MSPeconomist

I would have advised checking TIMATIC ahead of time, not the Chinese consulate. Chinese embassy and consulate websites are years out of date regarding transit visa rules. The airline agents will use TIMATIC to determine whether one can board or not.

andryas

Maybe because they don't really call it a "visa", rather than a permit for ROC citizen to travel to mainland China, since the PRC does not recognize ROC passports.

fti

I didn't recommend the Chinese consulate's WEBSITE, I recommended the Chinese consulate (phone? personal visit? Email?). Actually, my info came from Timatic, but it is obvious in this case that the airline agents did NOT use Timatic to determine whether one can board or not. If they had, they would have realized it was OK :-).

Often1

1. Call DL to get rebooked. You will need to find space with award availability. Be flexible on routing and schedule.

2. Once you are booked, call China Southern and review the TIMATIC entry carefully with them. It's available free on the *A website among others. Do not rely or call on anything else as it's TIMATIC on which China Southern will rely. Once you are certain that you have it correct, ask China Southern to note your mother's record so that the problem doesn't reoccur.

3. In reading the TIMATIC entrey for a citizen of Taiwan, resident in the USA, traveling to Taiwan with a <24 hour connection in the PRC and on a Taiwan passport, the problem doesn't appear to be with a visa, but with the fact that the PRC doesn't recognize the passport so the TWOV rules don't apply.

MSPeconomist

TIMATIC is also available through a link on the SkyTeam website. It prints out with the SkyTeam logo when you make a hard copy to bring, so CZ might give this more credibility than the *A version.

IME DL doesn't seem to pay attention to notes in the record about visa regulations and DL agents aren't eager to add such notes to the record. The attitude is that the agent who issues the "DOCS OK" check is ultimately responsible.

If PRC doesn't recognize Taiwan passports, is it then true that no one who is only a citizen of Taiwan can enter China? Is the problem more specifically that citizens of Taiwan are, according to China, necessarily citizens of China and thus should enter based on travel documents from mainland China, perhaps with some exceptions if someone is a citizen of Taiwan but not ethnically Chinese/of Chinese descent? So are the flights between mainland China and Taiwan then filled with people from then mainland who are visiting Taiwan and not the reverse?

lolstebbo

The ROC and PRC issue documents (the Entry & Exit Permit and the Mainland Travel Permit, respectively) to citizens of the opposite government that serve as passports in cross-strait situations. These are for entry and exit, though; I don't think they're required for transit within 24 hours.

roknroll

I find it funny that the OP needed URGENT help, but never came back to the thread and hasn't been on FT since shortly after the post. Wondering if the issue resolved itself?

Jayz_004

I don't think transiting or not makes the difference here. As long as the person holds a ROC passport, he/she won't be able to go through passport control in PRC. The reverse is also true, PRC citizens cannot transit in TPE without the Permit. Had to deal with that once when I booked PVG-TPE-LAX, not the best experience...

Bowgie

This is absolutely right. Much has been written in the RGN "whale" fare topic about how airlines are using incorrect TIMATIC info about 24-hour "no visa" connections to deny boardings on inbound flights to Yangon. The fact that TIMATIC is wrong in this instance does not matter.

howtofreetravel

This happened to me once due to a delta .... up and delta just rebooked me for free

lolstebbo

The last few times I transited through TPE, I didn't even need to go through passport control. I don't know how it is on the PRC end, though.

mikepa

In CAN you go through passport control even when in transit. I even had to fill in a landing card!