Yaatri

"They must be used to this" is a very slippery argument.

Yaatri

Thanks for the link. HEre is one that defines the refusal rate also.

2006 Refusal rates by country

Yaatri

I counted the number of posts I made. Congratulations! You are absolutely right about the number of posts. Your response is a little hasty. Five posts in a row simply mean that I came into the thread after it had been underway for a while.As is usual, people raise various issues. Hence consecutive posts.

mcgahat

Before my wife became a US Citiizen we applied for visas to so many countries I cant even begin to count them. I can tell you that the fees mentioned for a Chinese visa are pretty typical of the prices we paid. The only reasonable one was Japan. I think we paid something like a $6 fee for a transit visa as our visits where always only a few days and their transit visas are good for something like 7 days I think, pretty long for a transit visa I think.

Regarding the US visa application process.......my friends and family have always been treated well when applying so no complaints there but the time it takes to get the visa is very unreasonable IMO. Then again I just looked the Russian visa process.....ugh.

hfly

Indians pay the same amount as Chinese people for visas, incidenatlly US citizens generally receive TEN YEAR visas to India and before that got five,incidentally someone mentioned Brazil, a country which blows the reciprocal horn all the time (little secret, while the US "started" by almost always necessitating visas from them, they started the charge many years ago) they give blanket five year viasa and the charges are exactly the same.

The only two oddballs are Russia and China, Russia beng the absolute most corrupt of all (in many places around the world they will turn you down or quote huge wait times (1, 2, 3 weeks) but very often there is an "agency" often owned by a connected person, who can turn around an application in a day for 3-10 times the price.

hfly

Yaatri, you really do not know much about China or what you are speaking about do you? Until quite recently normal Chinese people could not travel anywhere as tourists. They could not just buy a ticket and then get a visa. Those that travelled generally had to do so for business, as part of "official groups", students, family invitations, etc. The government simply did not allow them. Over the last 10 years or so, Chinese citizens have been able to travel abroad as tourists to approved destinations. Generally those travelling for these purposes do so through travel agencies and it is a requirement that they pay a deposit to the agency for their visa, hence my comment that theay are accustomed to this.

Yaatri

My comments were quite general and should not be restricted to just Chinese travelers. Threads complaining high visa fees charged by "other" countries routinely come up on FT with the following two truths.
1. They are almost always started by American, or sometimes, U.K. FTers.
2. The complaint is never about their own countries as, often they have no idea how much citizens of other countries have to pay to get a visa to the U.S. or the U.K.
For that reason and that others, including yourself, had already increased the scope of the thread to include countries (for example, the U.S.) other than those mentioned in the OP, viz, China and the U.K., I don't see why talking about experiences based on visa transactions between he U.S. and other countries is invalid but talking about the U.S. is not? If it's OK to include visa transactions between the U.S. and other countries, then how much or how little I know about China is not very relevant when we are discussing rationale for visa fees and how people are treated during the applotication process or at arrival. I admit that I have not traveled to China as frequently as many, including yourself, have. But when we did, our entire was more pleasant than that dealing with the U.S. consular and even passport services, not to mention the entry procedures on arrival.
Going back to your comment about being used to it, I suppose we can all get used to fees that other countries charge us for the services we wish them to perform for us. I don't see why the fees we (our country) charge others are more justified than fess that other countries charge us. @:-)

anacapamalibu

What's wrong about it?

hfly

ana, go up aeveral posts and read the details, I don't need to repost them again in the same thread.

yaatri, I was responding to your "very slippery argument" post. I should also mention that whenever this subject comes up I am generally very fair handed in how I respond to it. Unfortunately your blanket statements do NOT really apply to China and that IS what this thread is about. I have been a regular traveller to China since 1985, yet I have just counted in my passport 13 visas from the last 8 years (current passport). Despite the fact that I have generally held of should have been qualified for ONE year visas for close to 20 years, there have been several times when either because of politics (the Us hitting the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by mistake, or the Chinese playing hide and seek with a P3 Orion) when the most they would issue was a six month or double entry visa............and they charged the exact same as they were charging for 1 year visas. Hell, last year I had to have 3 visas due to Olypmic idiocy, which obviously was not evenly applied as I received a one year again at the tightest possible time. the US has played no similar games with the Chinese. If you want to go back further, once upon a time US visas cost Chinese visitors close to nothing, but it was when the Chinese started hiking their fees that the US retaliated in kind (pre-9/11). Furthermore as I stated above, I do not know how many Chinese mission visa offices you have visited, but other than a few sorta decent ones (London, New York, Amsterdam) most are absolute hell holes.

I am generally not a big fan of the US consular system, however I have witnessed over the last 6-7 years that they have straightened out their act in many countries and if one travels to a country like Turkey and asks those that have dealt with the US consulate and other consulates, they will generally tell you that the US "treats them like human beings" while the Eu countries have disgusting facilities and treat them like garbage.

DesertNomad

The Chinese Embassy in Prague is fine... but no 1 yr visas for Americans... infinitely better than the Turkmenistan Embassy in Tashkent where I spent 6 hours!

DCBob

Appreciate the update. I stayed at the Royal Livingstone Hotel in October 2006, which was before the change you mention occurred.

jimbo99

Incidentally... Taiwanese passport holders now no longer need to apply in advance for a visa when coming to the UK. In response UK passport holders now get 90 days visa-exempt entry to Taiwan (extendable to 180 days). Almost everyone else gets 30 days or needs a visa in advance. A misguided response in my opinion - 30 days is enough for practically any legitimate purpose in Taiwan - it will be great for illegal English teaching.

I was told by a bloke on Kinmen (not part of Taiwan but governed by the "naughty" ROC regime in Taipei - it's right by the mainland coastline) that you don't need a Chinese visa to enter Ximen from Kinmen. Certainly Taiwanese don't need to go through the usual procedure. Think it's day trips only.

Now there's a funny thing. China so keen on the "one country" thing - but I can pitch up in Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan without any pre-hassle. Not true of Taiwanese visiting HK or the mainland, or mainland Chinese visiting HK, Macau (?), or Taiwan.

Incidentally, Brits still get 180 days on entry to HK - unlike other EUs. No grudges for all that colonial aggression.

I think the reciprocity thing is misguided - certainly Vietnam loses tourist business because neighbouring countries are less hasslesome to loaded tourists. But "up to them" is my view.

gardkarlsen

Hi

I'm Norwegian so I don't need that many visas. But talking about ridiculous rules: when my wife and I went to the USA a few years back my wife had to apply for a visa as she travels on a South African passport. But it was not enough to apply for a visa - she physically had to meet at the US embassy in Oslo (the capitol of Norway) which meant that she had to fly there to apply for a visa. So all in all in ended up being quite an expensive visa due to the fact that she had to mett up at the embassy to get the visa - isn't that ridiculous?

hfly

I guess she should be used to that as most all nations require South Africans ro do exacrly the same. She planning on visiting the UK or France at anytime soon?

Loren Pechtel

The problem is the large number of people that use a visa as a means of illegally immigrating here.