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Old Jan 5, 2017, 4:04 am
  #1  
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China Southern Guangzhou Baiyun airport transit accommodations guide

CZ China Southern Guangzhou Baiyun airport transit accommodations guide

China Southern is offering free transit accommodations for some transits at GuangZhou Baiyun airport. This can be very good if you are contemplating CZ but worried about a long layover in CAN. I have made a step by step guide that will get you all the way through.


Requirements
You need to research this yourself, as it is likely to change over time. This might be a starting point: http://www.csair.com/en/tourguide/tr...ccommodations/
There are also many different combinations getting you different quality of hotel, so that is an aspect aswell. Currently, for "Hotels of grade A" you need
  • I/I or I/D connection of between 8-48 h with at least one international segment in J or F, or
  • D/D overnight connection of less than 24h where no same-day connection exists, with both segments in J or F, or
  • connections as above and Skyteam EP
In all cases, it needs to be CZ operated flights or a few approved codeshares. If anything out of the ordinary, you need to research.


Booking accommodations
You are not required to pre-book accommodations yourself, but it will most likely save you time and nerves. Also, if you prefer to stay at the airport, the pullman is your choice and you may need to reserve a room quite some time in advance.
To pre-book accommodations follow the steps below.

NB! It is important to do this through the app. The other avenues offered (different pages on their website) does not seem to work for travellers without a Chinese id-number in the reservation. You cannot call either - call-center will only tell you to use the website.

  1. Book a connecting flight that meets the requirements. Make a note of your e-ticket number
  2. Download the CZ app. It is filed under its Chinese name, but you can search for the publisher "China Southern Airlines" or "China Southern Airlines Company Limited".
  3. Launch the app and switch to the English version
  4. There are 2 alternative interfaces in the app. If you use "classic" go to "My order" then "Transfer accommodations". If you use "New version" go to "More" then "Transfer accommodations".
  5. Enter your e-ticket-number without the dash as "Document No." and your name on the form "SURNAME/NAME" with the slash and without any spaces. Go to next step and wait while it searches for the booking. Input format is very important to succeed. If no luck, it might be that the name needs tweaking. Some FT'er have had luck with adding "MR" or by altering order of names. If booking is with multiple first names, this format may work SURNAME/CHRISTIAN CHRISTIAN (ie with one space between first names)
  6. Add your contact information. ONLY +86 phone numbers works, so don't bother if haven't got one. Add e-mail instead.
  7. Choose your hotel - you will get a order number on the form "XYYYYMMDDnnnnn". Don't be sad if the e-mail-address added in previous step is not showing under "Contact method" - You need to enter it but it usually doesn't stick. Take a screenshot of the confirmation. You can pull up this reservation in the app at a later time by doing these steps over again, but having a screenshot is easier.

Transit, visa exempt and hotel
Note!
This part is outdated. Have a look at post#64.


For the transit you also need to follow this guide. The info written on csair.com is not really aimed at foreigners and might be guiding you to a transfer desk landside. Which might be difficult to reach without a visa.

This is written as if you arrive at A section of the airport. (B section is likely similar)

You may be met at the gate but if not you can find your way yourself.
If arriving on a jet bridge, follow signs to international transfer, which is at the southernmost tip of the A-building. If arriving on bus, you arrive at the southern end for starters, but at ground level so just take the stairs up.

Transfer hall can be chaotic at times. Make your way to channel number 10 marked as "Transit accommodations" on the far right of the hall. You may have to bypass a long line of people queuing to get into the transit hall, look for "Sky Priority" which is on the right.

At desk 10, present passport, current and onward boarding passes. (If you don't have onward BP, show ticket and you'll get onward BP). Now is the time when the screenshot of the hotel-reservation comes in handy! If you didn't pre-reserve a hotel, they will sort it for you but you are going to get whatever is available.

Once cleared they write the hotel voucher number on your onward BP. Collect all your stuff, turnaround 180° and make your way back to where you came from. Find Arrivals, which is just next door to Transit. (If transit desk isn't too busy, you can ask to be walked but you may have to wait a while for that to happen. If you think you can find your way on your own, there is nothing to be gained from getting walked, ie no shortcuts are done.)
In "Arrivals" you should go to the line handling "Visa Exempt 24/72h transit", but it is not always advertised as this. If not, look for the "Special" line. In my case it was to the far right. You'll need to have the normal "Arrivals" card filled in.

Once cleared for immigrations, escalators go down for bag collection (but yours are likely checked to final destination) and customs inspection. After customs, you are landside and you can now go to the hotel or go look for the bus that takes you to the hotel.

If you are staying at the pullman, just go up one floor, cross over the check-in hall to get to the north side of the airport where you will see the pullman a few hundred meters to the north. When entering the pullman from airport side, you'll need to take escalators down 2 floors to find the reception. Passport and boarding pass (with the voucher number written on) is needed.


Departure
Like any normal departure - You'll need the departures card filled out.

Last edited by intuition; May 26, 2018 at 6:09 am Reason: updating with new info
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Old Jan 5, 2017, 4:53 am
  #2  
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Thanks for putting together this useful guide.

Originally Posted by intuition
It is unlikely CZ will meet up at the gate and you need to find your way yourself.
Whenever I have flown CZ internationally in first or business arriving at CAN I have always been met at the airbridge and escorted to wherever I need to go.
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Old Jan 5, 2017, 5:14 am
  #3  
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OK, I have a 50% hit ratio on the meetup!
I thought it came down to the length of the transit time. I arrived on a 90 minute transfer and was met by the gate (no escort though, only told where to go). Arrived yesterday on a 15 hour layover and there was staff on the jetbridge but not my name (only one name on the billboard and it was for a short connection). So that was my assumption that the connection time has something to do with it. And if one has transit accommodations it is at least a 8h layover.

Made changes accordingly!

Last edited by intuition; Jan 5, 2017 at 5:20 am
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Old Jan 5, 2017, 12:47 pm
  #4  
 
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This is "fail-safe", but it's typically more straightforward.

This his is a good collation and it does give step-by-step instructions. Just a couple of things from my experiences. Firstly, I think CZ are a lot more polished in their handling of transit than you suggest. There were SEVERAL airline reps (easily identifiable) at every point along the way that you could ask for assistance. Secondly, I was able to book transit accommodation on the website relatively easily (the tough bit was bringing up the flight detail, but once you've got that sorted it's very easy). Thirdly, travelling Business the meet-and-greet service seems to work very well in my experience....I think you'd be unlucky not to be met. Once you're at the transit accommodation desk, if you have missed out, they will give you a personal rep. Whenever I've done this, the rep has walked me over to the Pullman and has assisted with check-in. I think once you've done it a couple of times, it's very straightforward and a really, really good feature of long haul Business class travel with CZ.


Originally Posted by intuition
CZ China Southern Guangzhou Baiyun airport transit accommodations guide

China Southern is offering free transit accommodations for some transits at GuangZhou Baiyun airport. Because CZ might not be as polished as some airlines (ie the transit might not be as smooth as expected), I thought it would be nice to have a short guide on how to.

Requirements
You need to research this yourself, as it is likely to change over time. This might be a starting point: http://www.csair.com/en/tourguide/tr...ccommodations/
There are also many different combinations getting you different quality of hotel, so that is an aspect aswell. Currently, for "Hotels of grade A" you need
  • I/I or I/D connection of between 8-48 h with at least one international segment in J or F, or
  • D/D overnight connection of less than 24h where no same-day connection exists, with both segments in J or F, or
  • connections as above and Skyteam EP
In all cases, it needs to be CZ operated flights or a few approved codeshares. If anything out of the ordinary, you need to research.


Booking accommodations
You are not required to pre-book accommodations yourself, but it will most likely save you time and nerves. Also, if you prefer to stay at the airport, the pullman is your choice and you may need to reserve a room quite some time in advance.
To pre-book accommodations follow the steps below.

NB! It is important to do this through the app. The other avenues offered (different pages on their website) does not seem to work for travellers without a Chinese id-number in the reservation. You cannot call either - call-center will only tell you to use the website.
  1. Book a connecting flight that meets the requirements. Make a note of your e-ticket number
  2. Download the CZ app. It is filed under its Chinese name, but you can search for the publisher "China Southern Airlines" or "China Southern Airlines Company Limited".
  3. Launch the app and switch to the English version
  4. There are 2 alternative interfaces in the app. If you use "classic" go to "My order" then "Transfer accommodations". If you use "New version" go to "More" then "Transfer accommodations".
  5. Enter your e-ticket-number without the dash as "Document No." and your name on the form "SURNAME/NAME" with the slash and without any spaces. Go to next step and wait while it searches for the booking. Input format is very important to succeed. If no luck, it might be that the name needs tweaking. Some FT'er have had luck with adding "MR" or by altering order of names.
  6. Add your contact information. ONLY +86 phone numbers works, so don't bother if haven't got one. Add e-mail instead.
  7. Choose your hotel - you will get a order number on the form "XYYYYMMDDnnnnn". Don't be sad if the e-mail-address added in previous step is not showing under "Contact method" - You need to enter it but it usually doesn't stick. Take a screenshot of the confirmation. You can pull up this reservation in the app at a later time by doing these steps over again, but having a screenshot is easier.

Transit, visa exempt and hotel
For the transit you also need to follow this guide. The info written on csair.com is not really aimed at foreigners and might be guiding you to a transfer desk landside. Which might be difficult to reach without a visa.

This is written as if you arrive at A section of the airport. (B section is likely similar)

You may be met at the gate but if not you can find your way yourself.
If arriving on a jet bridge, follow signs to international transfer, which is at the southernmost tip of the A-building. If arriving on bus, you arrive at the southern end for starters, but at ground level so just take the stairs up.

Transfer hall can be chaotic at times. Make your way to channel number 10 marked as "Transit accommodations" on the far right of the hall. You may have to bypass a long line of people queuing to get into the transit hall, look for "Sky Priority" which is on the right.

At desk 10, present passport, current and onward boarding passes. (If you don't have onward BP, show ticket and you'll get onward BP). Now is the time when the screenshot of the hotel-reservation comes in handy! If you didn't pre-reserve a hotel, they will sort it for you but you are going to get whatever is available.

Once cleared they write the hotel voucher number on your onward BP. Collect all your stuff, turnaround 180° and make your way back to where you came from. Find Arrivals, which is just next door to Transit. (If transit desk isn't too busy, you can ask to be walked but IME they are, and you may have to wait a while for that to happen.)
In "Arrivals" you should go to the line handling "Visa Exempt 24/72h transit", but it is not always advertised as this. If not, look for the "Special" line. In my case it was to the far right. You'll need to have the normal "Arrivals" card filled in.

Once cleared for immigrations, escalators go down for bag collection (but yours are likely checked to final destination) and customs inspection. After customs, you are landside and you can now go to the hotel or go look for the bus that takes you to the hotel.

If you are staying at the pullman, just go up one floor, cross over the check-in hall to get to the north side of the airport where you will see the pullman a few hundred meters to the north. When entering the pullman from airport side, you'll need to take escalators down 2 floors to find the reception. Passport and boarding pass (with the voucher number written on) is needed.


Departure
Like any normal departure - You'll need the departures card filled out.
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Old Jan 5, 2017, 3:59 pm
  #5  
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OK!
I will make a few alterations to the text! While I've made several visits to CAN, I've only done CZ J transit twice so I do not think I know it all! I just wanted to summarize for other travellers.

It is good to know you got the website to work. I tried multiple times, both on EN and CN versions and failed to pull my reservation on all attempts. The app worked on my first attempt, so I reckon this is still the preferred way to do it.

As for getting walked to hotel, yes they do that. They asked me if I knew where the hotel was, and then offered to walk me. No agent was around to help me however, and the agent manning the accommodations both had to close shop and go looking for someone. It took roughly 5-10 minutes to find a walker for me. In the line for immigrations, the walker bailed on me, or so I thought. What she did was to pass through immigrations through a staff gate, but she didn't communicate this to me. I found her waiting after immigrations, but at that time she had forgotten what I looked like, so there was a brief moment of confusion. Never the less, it worked.
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Old Jan 6, 2017, 12:44 am
  #6  
 
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Both times I was in transit in J I was met and escorted, and for a long connection I was given a room at the Pullman even though it was an award ticket on AF ticket stock.

For my next trip I am again in J with a long International transit CZ-CZ but as it is again a Flying Blue award on AF ticket stock I can't log in on the CZ website or app, any other way to guarantee the Pullman?
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Old Jan 7, 2017, 11:17 pm
  #7  
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Originally Posted by AJCNL
...

For my next trip I am again in J with a long International transit CZ-CZ but as it is again a Flying Blue award on AF ticket stock I can't log in on the CZ website or app, any other way to guarantee the Pullman?
AFAIK the only options to make the pre-reservation are website and mobile app. Unless someone else can come up with a solution I think you are out of luck and will have to wait until you land in CAN to see what you'll get.
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Old Jan 8, 2017, 3:03 pm
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Thanks for posting this. I had been having lots of trouble with the web portal. The App worked well. For me - I had booked with my two christian names - and it processed the accomodation application when I inputted it as SURNAME/CHRISTIAN CHRISTIAN
(note - space between christian names after the slash.

Good luck everyone :-)
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 7:54 pm
  #9  
 
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Originally Posted by AJCNL
Both times I was in transit in J I was met and escorted, and for a long connection I was given a room at the Pullman even though it was an award ticket on AF ticket stock.
Flying on an award in J and hoping to get the same treatment. The local office here in SYD refused to book any accommodation because it's an award ticket
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Old Apr 29, 2017, 12:45 am
  #10  
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Last edited by intuition; Apr 29, 2017 at 12:46 am Reason: Second thought
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Old Apr 29, 2017, 12:57 am
  #11  
 
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Originally Posted by MAZ199
Flying on an award in J and hoping to get the same treatment. The local office here in SYD refused to book any accommodation because it's an award ticket
You should be ok. On our most recent trip CZ couldn't book the accommodation in advance as we were ticketed on AF stock, on arrival no-one met us off the plane, but we went straight to the C class transit desk, which is easy to find. I showed them our reservations and after an awful lot of typing they confirmed they would give us a free room at the Pullman, and we were walked through the airport to the hotel check-in desk. As the room wasn't available for an hour they gave us breakfast vouchers.

As a precaution I had already booked a room direct with the hotel, but with no advance payment so they just cancelled that and gave us the room at CZ's cost.
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Old Apr 29, 2017, 1:03 am
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One additional point in this very useful thread.

I flew AMS-CAN-AKL, entering China on TWOV. Checking in with KL in AMS they issued one single boarding pass covering both flights. This caused some confusion on departure from CAN going through the various security checks, they had to go off and ask a supervisor. I would recommend anyone in possession of one of these boarding passes to insist that the transfer desk issues a new CZ boarding pass for the onward flight.
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Old May 5, 2017, 12:51 pm
  #13  
 
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Hi - I have a question as this is all news (and new) to me. I am flying business class (using Delta points) JFK > CAN > CHC as 1 ticket and I have a layover from like 6am until Midnight, so about 18 hours give or take.

I assumed my bags get checked through as its one ticket/confirmation, so my plan was to depart the plane, leave the airport, hire a private tour guide for ~8 hour tour of the city, go back to airport, sit in lounge, then hop on flight at midnight.

Could I use this program (again award business class booking - reading the fine print I think its ok) to get a free hotel room for that 18 hours? I could check in at hotel, then go on the tour, go back to hotel, shower/rest up, then go back to the airport instead of sitting in a lounge for ~6 hours?
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Old May 6, 2017, 3:17 am
  #14  
 
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Originally Posted by eggzlot
Hi - I have a question as this is all news (and new) to me. I am flying business class (using Delta points) JFK > CAN > CHC as 1 ticket and I have a layover from like 6am until Midnight, so about 18 hours give or take.

I assumed my bags get checked through as its one ticket/confirmation, so my plan was to depart the plane, leave the airport, hire a private tour guide for ~8 hour tour of the city, go back to airport, sit in lounge, then hop on flight at midnight.

Could I use this program (again award business class booking - reading the fine print I think its ok) to get a free hotel room for that 18 hours? I could check in at hotel, then go on the tour, go back to hotel, shower/rest up, then go back to the airport instead of sitting in a lounge for ~6 hours?
My experience is that CZ offer all passengers with an international transfer over 8 hours a free hotel, including award tickets, Business class passengers always get the Pullman hotel at the airport if it is available. As you will be ticketed on Delta you won't be able to pre-book, but they will arrange it for you at the Business class transfer desk. It has worked for me on both occasions I had a transfer of that sort. Just check you are eligible for TWOV.
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Old May 7, 2017, 7:39 am
  #15  
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I did this 1 time before. I tried to get the Pullman hotel with my skyteam elite plus membership with CI for international connections, Failed..and was told it was only for their own gold members as well as business class.

Anyway now I am not sure if its a new policy but elite plus members can expect an A grade hotel (they have A,B C/D grades.) that should mean the Pullman hotel or another 5 star hotel.This is advertised on their website.

I am almost thinking to make a short flight where I have to make an overnight connection to try this out and to see if in practice they will actually do it.
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