24-Hour TWOV China (Beijing-PEK) Not for Thai?

[MattFS218]

My girlfriend was transiting thru PEK and had a 10+ hour layover in PEK. She went BKK-PEK-YVR (Vancouver) and I was surprised that she wasn't able to enter China for a day of sightseeing.

The visa exemption for Thai's worked fine when I was transiting via CTU (Chengdu) last year. Does anyone know if something has changed?

It appears Thai's used to be eligible for the 72-hour TWOV (google cache) but that most up-to-date websites now have no mention of Thai's as being eligible. Google searches didn't turn up anything recent.

She was flying on TG -> AC (Thai connecting to Air Canada) and had a boarding pass and ticket confirmed for 10-hours after arrival. She tried two different immigration officers at PEK, and both denied entry and told her to go to the transit area.

[LawrenceChee]

Heya Matt

They have tightened the rules and no ASEAN passport except Singapore (14 day visa free) can get that 72 hour transit visa now

[MattFS218]

Hi Lawrence,

Thanks for the reply. Do you have a reference for this anywhere? The people at FlyerTalk are saying that all nationals (including Thai) should have been able to get the 24-hour TWOV.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china/708095-china-24-72-144-hour-transit-without-visa-twov-rules-master-thread-137.html

I searched all around google, but could not find anything. Can't tell if it was bad luck with 2 different immigration officers, or a policy that I can't find documented elsewhere on the web.

[LawrenceChee]

https://www.travelchinaguide.com/embassy/visa/free-72hour/

http://lawandborder.com/china-72-hour-transit-visa-waiver/

Heya Matt

This is the links to the countries permitted for the transit ; basically it's like what we have in ASEAN there re some preferred Asian countries like Korea Japan etc and Thailand is not one of them unfortunately

I travel to business often with my spouse and it's a hassle but now after numerous single entries , they are close to offering her a multi entry based on records of entries etc

[taxout]

There are two different TWOV schemes in Beijing: the 24-hour TWOV which pretty much everyone gets, and the 72-hour TWOV which not every nationality gets. The OP's GF was travelling on a 24-hour TWOV.

And she did get the 24-hour TWOV. But immigration would not let her leave the airport during her TWOV, though they usually do permit travellers on 24-hour TWOV to leave the airport. Nonetheless, there have been occasional reports of travellers on 24-hour TWOV not being allowed to leave the airport, so this isn't a unique case.

Edited June 2, 2016 by taxout