China Visa Help

NoNameNoNumber · 6 Apr 2019 at 13:47

Looking to fly from LHR to PEK arriving on 19th April.
Free visa in China lasts 144 hours taking us to the 25th April but we plan to fly to Bangkok on the 22nd April (visa free for 30 days) and spend 6 nights there, flying back to PEK for 7am and catching an 11am flight from PEK to LHR (thus not leaving the airport and not needing a visa???)

Friday 19th LHR-PEK
Monday 22nd PEK-BKK
Monday 29th BKK-PEK-4hr stop-LHR

Sound good? I can't see anything suggesting there would be any issue and when I've passed through China before for connecting flights that I haven't left the airport for you obviously don't need to go through immigration.
Only issue I can see is the fact that we would fly into Beijing on 19/4 and not leaving until the 29/4 but hopefully the proof of onward flights would mean less of a bumming?

Feef · 6 Apr 2019 at 15:14

I would think you'll be ok, depending slightly on your tickets (I.e. If they're booked as one journey from LHR-BKK and back, or two separate tickets, LHR-PEK, PEK-BKK and back). There are apparently some funny rules about needing a different, standalone ticket to the third destination out of China. That said, I flew TPE-PVG-LGW (I think, may have been Heathrow), booked as one journey with a 24 hour stop in Shanghai, and got in visa free no problem.

These rules change all the time, and it's hard to keep up with them all, but I'd imagine you won't have a problem. That said, you can check with the embassy here, or post the ticket details and I can have a look.

Edit: scrap that, having checked the most recent rules, the standalone ticket thing is only in reference to the third country not just being a stopover. As long as you're not going through immigration on the way back, you'll be fine. If you are, there's no concrete information on using the visa free entry multiple times in a short period.

NoNameNoNumber · 6 Apr 2019 at 16:22

Thanks @Feef, I had you in mind when I asked the question as I remember chatting to you when I went to TPE

The embassy in the UK is a really badly recorded answer machine that seems to list every possible option except to just talk to a human that can answer a simple question! Good shout though on talking with the embassy over there...
Yeah I had a 20 something hour stopover in Guangzhou where they just stamped the passport to say I had to leave by x time/date but that was because we left the airport to go to a hotel overnight, no issues at all. Whereas on the way back from BKK would only be a 4 hr stop, we wouldn't need to leave the airport and thus go through immigration.

It's the fact we flyt into PEK and don't leave until 10 days later I think thgey may question, but as above, we would have proof we wont be in China.

Feef · 6 Apr 2019 at 18:01

Yeah you should be fine, you'll have the exit stamp from the first time you leave China, and the way back is only in transit. Enjoy the trip

NoNameNoNumber · 6 Apr 2019 at 18:17

That's my thinking.
Thanks, yeah can't wait, only really got Tianamen square and the Great wall on my list in Beijing, but we're surprising some family out there by turning up unannounced.
Obv. China's a long slog for a weekend so thought we'd pop over to somewhere else whilst in the neighbourhood. (We did discuss Taiwan again!) Seoul was on the cards too, as was Vietnam...
Couple of nights in Bangkok then a trip to Koh Samet. Can't wait

NoNameNoNumber · 6 Apr 2019 at 18:19

Tickets booked btw!

Any suggestions you'd make it you've been to any of these places?

Feef · 6 Apr 2019 at 20:46

To be honest, I can't be much help with Beijing - I haven't really spent any time there since 2009, and given how China develops, I wouldn't be confident saying anything will be left from what I remember! The old sights will always be there, of course, but I spent most of my time either in hostels around Yonghegong/Nanluoguxiang (I hate that I don't have a Chinese IME on this laptop yet), or with friends being messy around Chaoyang. Great Wall is certainly worth it, think carefully about which point you head to for the best trade off of travel time and not too many people. We got incredibly lucky, going the week after Chinese new year, and had it more or less to ourselves.

Several visits to Bangkok, but that's been well covered elsewhere on these forums - Taiwan's really my only area of expertise! Anyway, you'd have to be trying pretty hard not to find something interesting.

Jimbeam3678 · 7 Apr 2019 at 06:08

Not much to add apart from another shout out about Taiwan being awesome!

JunkBot · 7 Apr 2019 at 08:35

Why not fly back to LHR from BKK?

Delvis · 7 Apr 2019 at 08:54

I loved China, really want to go back.

Saw all the big sites, Great Wall, Terracotta warriors, Tianemen square, a few others but and bobs, simply awesome. And the food was immense.

We just got standard visas I think and it was only a 11 night trip? Don't know if the rules where tighter back then

NoNameNoNumber · 7 Apr 2019 at 13:12

Feef said:
To be honest, I can't be much help with Beijing - I haven't really spent any time there since 2009, and given how China develops, I wouldn't be confident saying anything will be left from what I remember! The old sights will always be there, of course, but I spent most of my time either in hostels around Yonghegong/Nanluoguxiang (I hate that I don't have a Chinese IME on this laptop yet), or with friends being messy around Chaoyang. Great Wall is certainly worth it, think carefully about which point you head to for the best trade off of travel time and not too many people. We got incredibly lucky, going the week after Chinese new year, and had it more or less to ourselves.

Several visits to Bangkok, but that's been well covered elsewhere on these forums - Taiwan's really my only area of expertise! Anyway, you'd have to be trying pretty hard not to find something interesting.

Was that the Mutianyu section? Looks a lot like where we were looking to visit the wall, although I guess several thousand km of it look very similar anyhow

Jimbeam3678 said:
Not much to add apart from another shout out about Taiwan being awesome!

Word

JunkBot said:
Why not fly back to LHR from BKK?

Because our return from LHR to PEK was ~£600 where as just a single was ~£900 with a similar kinda price to get back from BKK.

In total the flights have cost around £1000 and we never had any intention of spending more than a long weekend in Beijing.

Delvis said:
I loved China, really want to go back.

Saw all the big sites, Great Wall, Terracotta warriors, Tianemen square, a few others but and bobs, simply awesome. And the food was immense.

We just got standard visas I think and it was only a 11 night trip? Don't know if the rules where tighter back then

I believe now you get 144 hrs for free... I guess it's changed a bit... Sounds like you used your time there well, not really somewhere that was ever on th bucket list but it's just fallen that way with getting out there to surprise the OHs parents and brother... Sure it's gonna be epic.

Feef · 7 Apr 2019 at 14:30

NoNameNoNumber said:
Was that the Mutianyu section? Looks a lot like where we were looking to visit the wall, although I guess several thousand km of it look very similar anyhow

It was indeed, I didn't specify that before as I'd genuinely forgotten which part we ended up going to

Had to double check with my friend. Don't remember much about how we organised it, except a lot of arguing with taxi drivers and sharing a ride back to Beijing with some other similarly lost European vistors.

NoNameNoNumber said:
I believe now you get 144 hrs for free... I guess it's changed a bit...

This is generally true, but it's worth noting that in some fairly popular places (Xi'an, Guilin, Harbin, Guangzhou, amongst others), you still only get a 72 hour permit, and in all cases, you're prohibited from leaving the province - except Beijing or Shanghai, which include some neighbouring areas. Or you can get 30 days visa free on Hainan island, which is a thoroughly bizarre place.