Damn that’s expensive. Can’t wait for real direct flights to Shanghai for a more fair NT8000. Or when the Xiamen-Kinmen link kicks in to allow travel in both directions. That will be the real gateway to travel in China and by my prediction will also help to bring a lot of foreign tourists/China expats to Taiwan.
Thanx for the info people. :moo:
[quote=“Toe Tag”]An interesting thing I found out about the flights: one-way, round-trip, triangle, open-jaw, Songshan/CKS, HK layover, its all about the same price 20,000- 23,000 all in.
I’m gonna look at these Asia air pass programs just in case though airtimetable.com/airpass_asia.htm[/quote]
It doesn’t surprise me that this portion would be the same. One-way or return to HK is the same also. But within China there is a difference for domestic flights.
I decided that for me the answer is to just pay an English speaking travel agent to handle everything. An agent that has actually obtained visas for Americans recently. The PRC bureaucrats are just too arbitrary for me to fool around with changing visas, lines, documentation. Also the travel agent will generate the flight itinerary and hotel reservations needed for the visa. I’m not actually staying in hotels, so its worth paying them the money to fabricate all this. I could ask my PRC friends for their paperwork, but its complicated, and I don’t want to implicate any of them so they lose a kidney later after PRC takes over ROC and finds all my (and your) subversive posts on Forumosa…
The recommended Taichung agent I found, said that right now the best bet is for me to spend NT$7000 for a single entry business visa, to be used within 90 days for a stay up to 30 days. In fact that may be the only viable visa for US citizens at this time.
Also FWIW I’m now hearing dates of 10/1 - 10/8 for the PRC holiday and 10/10 - 10/12 for the ROC holiday. Though I’d also heard 9/27 - 10/5 for the PRC holiday.
Hey all - so what is the situation now that direct flights are allowed? I’ll probably be in Taiwan late May/early June, and friend and I want to stick in a side trip to Shanghai.
What should we expect for a R/T Taipei-Shanghai? Also, I’m assuming it’ll be better to book it when we are in Taipei - any travel agents or websites to recommend?
Thanks!