I need to book a trip from Taiwan (any airpot is fine) to China in January. Will be traveling with newly-issued Taibaozheng.
What are the current itineraries on Taiwanese carriers into Mainland China (not Hong Kong/Macau)? Having some trouble making them show up on flights.google.com . I can find a handful of itineraries on PRC carriers, but I also want to see what the Taiwanese options are.
Is it possible to book travel with a PRC carrier prior to having a valid travel document for China? I want to book when I only have a US passport (I’m not a China visa holder) and Taiwanese passport, no Taibaozheng yet.
Would using a Taiwan or China-based travel agent help with any of the above?
That’s because there are almost none. China Airlines will operate once a week (Friday) from TPE to Beijing in January. No Shanghai flights iirc. Going via HK would give you more options.
Thanks, appreciate the info. Regarding traveling to HK, I did see those flights come up, and that would be convenient to my final location, however I was concerned about having to do two border crossings / quarantine rules.
I guess if I don’t cross passport control, I could avoid Hong Kong stuff and do the pre-travel testing in Taiwan. Is there a way currently to do a ferry transfer from HKG → mainland and only cross PRC passport control?
Do you (or anyone else who sees this) know what the difference will be between a PRC and Taiwan carrier for a Taiwan <-> China itinerary right now with Taibaozheng?
I know prior to Covid when boarding a PRC carrier in the US I must present US passport for documentation check, but I don’t know about any other gotchas.
That’s not possible but you don’t need to pass immigration in HKG as long as you transfer to a mainland China flight and stay in the airport.
From the link that @Twnfinn posted there’s also a EVA (code share with Air China) flight to Shanghai Pudong three times a week from Songshan airport, in case Shanghai gives you a better connection.
If you are Taiwanese (seeing that you have a Taiwan Compatriot Permit) shouldn’t you ask other Taiwanese ppl this question? I doubt anyone here would know much about it.
Have you not noticed how much misinformation floats between Taiwanese Boomers?
Oh I’m also asking my parents. The problem with this specific problem is that it requires talking to people that actually go to China during Covid era, and recently.
Some failure modes: (1) the conversation degenerates into talking about who got trapped in a quarantine recently (2) the conversation derails by talking about pre-covid transit links that no longer exist.
My partner is based in China and has been checking Chinese language blogs (my Chinese isn’t good enough for that), that provides good info on the entry/exit procedure at different airports. Also you get a higher % of PRC / ROC citizens that go back and forth on those forums (although there’s still not that many).
My current plan is to go through CTU inbound to China and probably return via PVG. This is based on the days of week that flights are available and the fact that my final destination is in the northeast. This is currently a $900 itinerary for a return just before Spring Festival.
PEK was attractive too. However PEK has had quirky extra COVID rules, like requiring more tests than the airline / destination asks for on an outbound flight. Actually my partner overheard randomly in a restaurant other people gossiping about that while we were researching this.
Xiamen was attractive as well however the flight is the most expensive and it uses a PRC carrier, which I believe is not as flexible on documentation changes.
Have you not noticed how no one has any information at all here? You are asking a bunch of people with US or Canadian passports, none of them has a Taiwan Compatriot Permit.
Are you doing OK? What are you getting at with your comments? I have in fact gotten several useful pieces of info here, and implemented it in my itinerary.
The only Taibaozheng specific info would be on what kind of special case PRC air carriers would have for booking when one does not have it yet. The main reason US / Canadian passport holders may not have much info is that the visas to China are rare, so there probably aren’t that many people with that info writing in English right now.
Most people I know in Taiwan are staying well clear of China, so I have to diversify my information sources. Also, it is useful for me to actively seek information to get myself out of an analysis rut. It’s not fair to my partner/family for me to not seek out information on my own, in addition to leaning on them.
This is just one of several avenues I’m using for information. I’m sharing back information I get via other channels, this seems valuable to the forum, no? Where would I find an English language forum with Taibaozheng holders anyway? That’s the only language I can efficiently use for written communications online.
Anyway, I have my itinerary set. Appreciate all the suggestions here.
(Posting in case other people come across this thread soon)
I think HKG is a useful option as a transit option, however I found acceptable price direct flights into the main entry airports in China. There’s a few HKG → final destination province, but those quarantine hotels back in 2021 when the last person I know went there, so I didn’t feel hot about quarantining there. If the quarantine situation was known to be good I would have dug into it more.
I also considered doing HKG → Shekou/Shenzhen by ground transport, but I suspect the mandatory testing would be more complicated than necessary. I was originally considering also going to Guangzhou/Shenzhen area on this trip, for which Shekou → HKG is a possible return route, but I took that off the itinerary. The reason this direction is good is that the ferry is open again in this direction, and there much fewer outbound testing requirement (like, zero) when leaving China.
