Transit in Beijing on separate airline tickets
Rephrasing a question I had in the comments of another question into a new question.
Me (Belgian) and my wife (South-Korean) are planning to travel from Seoul to Barcelona during a very busy (and expensive) time of the year. To reduce costs, I looked into making separate flight reservations.
My first flight would be from Seoul (Gimpo) to Beijing, with Asiana, landing at 9:50AM.
After that, we would have another reservation (separate ticket) with Aeroflot to fly from Beijing to Barcelona, leaving at 11:40AM (with layover in Moscow, but same ticket there).
We would only have carry-on luggage, so no checked-in luggage.
So, do we need a Chinese visa for this?
Is it reasonable (I'm willing to take some risk to save almost 1000$ per person), time-wise? I of course know that we are not covered if any flight delay on the first flight, leading us to miss our connection.
Can we stay in the transit zone, without having to go through customs? For this, we would have to do online check-in for Aeroflot in advance of course.
Any known problems for online checking with Aeroflot?
Best Answer
Visa-wise you're fine. However, a 1 hour 50 minute connection on separate tickets in Beijing is totally asking for it. I probably wouldn't take the flight even if the tickets were free.
As for the question about which terminal the airlines are in--I don't know and I don't care, the connection is insane, period.
Since you are on separate tickets you can't check your bags through, you will have to clear immigration, recover your bags and then clear customs. You then need to deliver your bags to the new airline then go back through customs, immigration and security. Having to move from one terminal to another is only a small part of the time. I don't know the checkin time limit for Beijing, I know it at least was 60 minutes in Shanghai--and the one time I did it with 65 minutes I would have missed the plane had it departed on time.
Beijing is notorious for connection problems, also--and since you're on separate tickets if you're not fast enough your main ticket goes poof.
Given the separate tickets I would book this with an overnight stay.
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Can I transit with two different airlines?
Your plane ticket will also become invalid. You should be careful if you will fly with two different airline companies. There are interline baggage agreements between the airlines. If they have an agreement, transit passengers can continue their journey without an issue.Can you transit through Beijing?
24-Hour Direct Transit Under the 24-hour visa-free transit rule, no visa is required for international flight, ship, or train passengers who transit directly through mainland China and will stay for less than 24 hours. Passengers should hold tickets to a third country or region and have a confirmed seat.Can you fly with separate tickets?
A: It depends, but the general rule is NO. Some airlines will through check baggage onto separately ticketed flights, but some won't (even if both tickets are with the same airline). Some airlines will take pity if your delay is due to them, but others don't.What does it mean when the airline says separate tickets?
A new update introduces the option to search for separate tickets, meaning that Google will search individual segments \u2014 even if that means booking from different services.Beijing Capital Airport (PEK), Terminal 3, International Transit Options
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