1

Well if the hotel is provided why not. But there has been scarce reports of 24 transits being issued in Guangzhou. Remember China is pretty flexible with these kind of arrangements so I wouldn't worry. Just flew in an hour ago myself, but am a resident.

2

Hi John555

Thanks for your reply and feedback.

Ideally it would be great to hear from anyone who has recently gone via Guangzhou that did not have pre arrange visa and using the transit visa stamp was either was able to leave the airport of tried to leave the airport and was told it was not possible.

3

hi there,
not sure if its relavent anymore as you posted in Feb but i have booked a flight and have an 8 hour stop over in Guangzhou... i booked through bestflights.com and my travel agent sent me through an application for stay permit which is a visa that lasts 24hours. These are his exact words ... "transit without Visa form for Guangzhou as discussed. You are required to complete this form and hand it into the Frontier Inspection Office in Guangzhou Airport if you wish to leave the airport during your transit stop."

if you would like me to forward you this form if you still need it let me know..

4

These are the laws in China for transit but applied depends on local whim.

5

Read an interview with someone highranking in China Southern Airlines recently (because I'm flying with them on Thursday). Basically that they are hiring Australian crew for Australian flights, Dutch crew for its connection to Amsterdam etc. and also adjusting the timing of these flights so a Europe trip is possible without a transit visa. Of course they also said they are working with the Chinese government in regarding the 72 hour visa on arrival that they have elsewhere. Seemed like they were positive it would happen, but these things can get delayed by bureaucracy.

6

For future reference I recently had a 14 hour lay over in Guangzhou and was allowed to exit the airport to go to a hotel for the day. Very easy, no questions, just had to wait and find the right counters to get though.

Go to the Transfer counter on the left hand side as you're exiting (even though it has a whole lot of signs and none really relate to international transit customers). They gave us:
a) a boarding card for our connecting flight
b) both the entry and exit cards
c) an application for a 24 stop over (although when we went through the lady said we didn't need this form in the future)

Take all the paperwork to the International Transfer line (again on the left). They take the entry card and pre-stamp the exit card and you have to keep hold of this one for when you come back in. She asked if we were just going to a hotel and it seemed like a pretty straight forward common request. She just told the man behind her to let us out, they unhooked the rail and we were able to walk straight through to customs.

I had a hotel booking I'd printed out in preparation to try justify that I needed to get out but didn't even care. We walked over the road to the Pullman hotel, booked a room for the day, had a sleep, swim, massage and watched TV - not a bad way to spend a long lay-over!

In the end it was lucky we got out as we found our bags going round and round the baggage belt so picked them up and got them checked back in.

7

I think I may fall into this category. Recently I flew with China Southern from HaNoi to Xi-an - this is a two flight trip. HaNoi>guang-zhou, change planes then guang-zhou>xian. I had a stopover of around four hours.

I had the devil of a time trying to get outside to have a smoke. When we arrived at guang-zhou, we were told if we had a connecting flight, to save time we could transfer our luggage to the domestic leg. This I did and found the over-efficient security guard seemed to want me to transfer myself as well. Which didn't suit me as I wanted to go outside. Long story short - walked up and down, security guards everywhere - "passport please" then pointed where I had to go which was not where I wanted to go. (I did eventually get outside, but that's another story)

8

hi everybody,

I was dealing with the same issue as TS. So I asked my travel agent and she send me to this website: http://www.csair.nl/page.php?id=5 . It is in Dutch, but you can change the language to English. Near the end of the text you'll find Transfer Application for Stay Permit. There you'll find the link to the form Fernis mentioned.

Would you be so kind to post here if the form got you out of the airport? (we have a delay of 16 hrs so would love to get out).

Have a great trip!

9

I have only 6hrs - any suggestions on where to go what to do? are there any showers? or am i best to bring a blanket and pillow? am flying LON-AKL so would be good to lie down and sleep for a bit?