Transit Visa in China

I have been going to China for the last 18 months and always do so on a Visa.

However this coming weekend I have to go to Hong Kong, via Shanghai as all flights were booked.

I am currently Not holding a China visa, and am Assuming I won't need 1 as I am travelling straight on to Hong Kong.

But the plot thickens, as the bookings are 2 seperate tickets:

Virgin Atlantic = London > Shanghai
Dragon Air = Shanghai > Hong Kong

and I am being told that we will have to clear immigration/customs, collect baggage and then re-check in for the HK portion.

and I have been told that for this scenario a 24 hour visa will be granted.

is this information correct, or am I headed for headaches on this journey ?

Shak

As I understand it, what you are being told is correct. Unfortunatly the Dragon HK flights go from domestic, as I recall. So you will need to go through immigration. I believe you can do a transit visa at the airport. The visa desk is by the imigration hall in the corner.

Please do check this with VS though. They will need to be happy with what you are doing to allow you to board the plane in the first place. And I would hate to be misleading you because, say, the rules have changed in the last few months.

^Don't check with VS - it's the pax responsibility to make sure you have the correct documentation - check with the embassy!

I beg to differ Lipstick. While you are quite right about it being the passenger's responsibility and the embassy being a good place to check, the Chinese Embassy do not take visa enquiries by phone (unless things have changed) - you have to call in person. However VS have always been really good on Visa advice to me in the past, and indeed have a section on their website dedicated to it.

However, this was not the point I was making to the OP. I once turned up for a PVG flight with the correct paperwork for a seaman's port visa issue. Not having seen it before it took nearly an hour to check in while the staff checked out if this was the correct paperwork or not (Me calling the british embassy finally sorted it). Understandably VS did not want to be stuck with the responsibility of having flown me out there only to find I could not get access. I said in my previous post "do check this with VS though. They will need to be happy with what you are doing to allow you to board the plane in the first place" which is exactly my experience.

I've had a similar thing happen, flying CX out of Hong Kong to Colombo. Sri Lankan immigration says you have to have a valid return ticket before they'll let you in, and Cathay do check for it before letting you check in. I had a ticket to fly HKG-CMB, but only had a print-out of the booking for my return CMB-HKG leg. They wouldn't let me check in until I'd signed a liability waiver promising that I'd pay for my return ticket to HK if they wouldn't let me into Sri Lanka.

Of course, they let me in - to be honest, Sri Lanka isn't the strictest place in the world I've seen when it comes to immigration: they let me in on a tourist visa carrying two very heavy and very large bags of commercial samples. I was sort of insulted at the time, since I was travelling on a business class ticket and did have the return flight booked in their system, but I didn't make too much of a fuss - I'd probably make more of a fuss if VS staff tried the same thing...