Tokyo with Air China? Too good to be true?

Getting a quote for £429 rtn for flights to Tokyo via Beijin on Air China for next March. Keen to pounce on what appears to be an amazing deal but also a bit apprehensive of flying Air China and booking so far in advance. Does anyone have any experience of flying Air China and know if you can still earn VS FC miles with them?

I haven't flown with them, but I believe that you will only earn FC miles (provided you are flying in a qualifying class) on the London > Beijing sector only. Details here:
https://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/fl ... china.html

You can also often get very reasonable deals to Tokyo with SAS which also earn miles. We fly in J with them every year and just have a short layover in CPH. https://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/fl ... lines.html

We love the SAS business offering and had friends who recently flew in Y to Tokyo and said it was decent

Hi

The previous post is right about earning miles - only on LHR-PEK

We've done nearly a dozen LHR-PEK mileage flights in First with Air China. They're slightly unusual compared with other airlines
Observatsations are

- They normally fly with the 'fasten seat belts' light on, which everyone ignores, then if there REALLY is turbulence, they 'bong' the sign
-Food is really good - as long as you like Chinese food
- In Flight entertainment is almost non-esxistant - unless your Mandarin is really fluent
- Service is 'odd' - very deferential - and quite often totally ineffectual
- Space in 777 is amazing - although it's 4 across - unlike Cathay's 3 across - you still get LOADS of room - Far more than BA first
- It's not set up for 'buddy' signing (ie face to face)
- Normal wine selection is awful - Great Wall Chinese wine that's barely drinkable
- But they stock on every flight a bizarre selection of wines they by in the Hospice de Beaune sale -often up to £1000 PER BOTTLE wines, that they've perfectly happy for you to guzzle (eg The Hospice Corton Charlemainge 2002 - land is only 0.2 hectares - produces 5 barrels per year (in a good year) and Air China bought 2 of them at stupidly high prices - my colleague wine buyers go out for a coffee when Air China are bidding - as they'll pay ANYTHING to get what they want....

SO - ENJOY!

Peter

About to book in the next few days...in economy however. Just popped into my mind - as we are transitting (2-3hrs) in Beijing do we need any form of visa? Also I seem to have seen comments about Air China not offering checked baggage through to final destination via Bejing. Is this true? Will we have to collect our bags and check in again? This will also impact the flights we choose and transit time we allow for.

Thanks for any advice in advance

About to book in the next few days...in economy however. Just popped into my mind - as we are transitting (2-3hrs) in Beijing do we need any form of visa? Also I seem to have seen comments about Air China not offering checked baggage through to final destination via Bejing. Is this true? Will we have to collect our bags and check in again? This will also impact the flights we choose and transit time we allow for.

Thanks for any advice in advance

As you will be on a single ticket, and sticking with CA (Air China) throughout the whole journey I can think of no reason why you would not be able to use the airside transit and have your bags checked all the way to Tokyo. There should be no reason why they would require you to enter China.

However, in the scenario that they do, as you have confirmed onward travel to a third country then you do not need a Visa - you can use the "Transit Without Visa" channels at Immigration which allows you to enter the country for, I believe for PEK, 144 hours. So you should be fine on that front.

(Note: I'm assuming you hold a British passport, I believe TWOV is only available for citizens of certain countries.)

Trying a dummy booking I noticed a tickbox to confirm that I was aware of the baggage in transit policy. It seems booking through baggage from an Intl flight has fairly recently been rolled out to a handful of destinations...within Europe seemingly all but London!


https://www.airchina.us/US/GB/info/bagg ... k-through/