Entering China from Hong Kong

[Dawei3]

A Chinese friend of mine in the US wants to go back to China in December.  I saw the discussion on entering from Macau & wondered if anyone knows the situation regarding going to the mainland via Hong Kong.  (To be clear, she is still a Chinese citizen). 

 

Several friends have mentioned there is lottery for plane flights, but they also noted if you don't get selected, you need to stay in a hotel and hotel space is expensive limited (as mentioned in the Macau discussion).  

 

Are there other options regarding to the mainland from HK, i.e., can you take a boat or other transport to the mainland or is airplane the only option?  Is there anything she can do now to plan for her December trip or is it just a gamble?  

 

[889]

It is all in flux at the moment. There may be a "reverse quarantine" in Hong Kong, in which those bound for the Mainland do their Mainland quarantine in HK. But no firm details yet.

 

In short, it's a complete waste of time now to plan a December trip.

[vellocet]

Just fly directly to the mainland.  I don't know why so many people want to detour through Hong Kong.  It's a quarantine either way.  

[889]

Because flights to the Mainland are in very short supply and tickets cost the earth.

[Dawei3]

On 9/12/2022 at 2:47 AM, 889 said:

Because flights to the Mainland are in very short supply and tickets cost the earth.

Exactly - This is why my friend doesn't want to fly directly to the mainland - it's super expensive.  $8k - $14 k for economy flights from Newark NJ.  

[vellocet]

Those super expensive fares are a thing of the past.  Try kayak.com or skyscanner.com, I'm seeing $2.4k - $1.8k.  Having looked, it is indeed cheaper in Hong Kong, but then you've got to deal with the trouble of getting to Hong Kong, finding a hotel and all that jazz.  I suppose it makes more sense if you live in Shenzhen as so many laowai do.  

[889]

Did you read the OP? Travelling in December. I find one 30-plus-hour crazy connection for around $4500 that doesn't work because of the testing rules. Unless you take a direct flight from the US complying with the bureaucracy involved is near impossible.

 

[vellocet]

Yeah, I'm looking for fares right now and I'm getting $2.4k PVG to HOU.  There was one for $1.8k, but turns out that's Eva Air and when I went to book it informed me it's not allowed to transit through Taiwan to the mainland.  Then why's it on the damn site, idiots.  

[Flickserve]

I think the limiting step for flights into HK is the hotel bookings. I am not sure of the current situation but there’s an update of HK hotels which offer the three day quarantine every three months and it is not yet announced which hotels will be doing hotel quarantine in December.

 

Some hotels come on the hotel quarantine scheme and some stop doing the quarantine (and go back to being a normal hotel), hence the difficult of booking some months in advance.

 

 I don’t think it’s that hard to go through the land border from HK to shenzhen (and then to Shenzen hotel quarantine) but I don’t know the exact process or the quota limit.

 

Coming back from Malaysia to HK in July, estimate more than half my flight were mainland Chinese doing this route to get into mainland China. 

[vellocet]

Yes, and flight aggregation sites like Kayak.com book flight segments separately, with different incoming and outgoing flight legs.  No wonder you think flights are so expensive if you're booking a round-trip flight with a carrier directly.  

[Flickserve]

On 9/12/2022 at 2:34 PM, vellocet said:

Just fly directly to the mainland.  I don't know why so many people want to detour through Hong Kong.  It's a quarantine either way.

 

Because there are few direct flights into mainland China and more into HK which acts as a transit point. This outweighs the disadvantage of double quarantine.

[Lu]

Folks, be nice and polite please. Surely it's possible to discuss flights and hotels without attacking each other.

[Guest realmayo]

On 9/14/2022 at 5:51 AM, vellocet said:

Those super expensive fares are a thing of the past.

Gosh you're right, way cheaper than they used to be. That's promising....

[Flickserve]

Just read here Shenzhen quota limit is 1500 per day.

 

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/194806/Hong-Kong-'actively-considering'-scrapping-hotel-quarantine-–-RTHK ?fbclid=IwAR10WSj8S509UkzSKyTgM32ANH0j_gTzAJGwAbU99P1R2D_xK_0qUGbT-BE

[Flickserve]

And HK drops hotel quarantine from September 26 onwards

 

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/195043/HK-introduces-'0+3'-quarantine-measure,-grants-entry-to-unvaccinated-residents 

[vellocet]

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/195035/Airfares-skyrocket-as-hotel-quarantine-comes-to-an-end

 

[Dawei3]

Thanks for everyone's input.  It looks like it will be a very long time before travel gets back to the way it was (if it ever does....)

[vellocet]

https://www.coronavirus.gov.hk/eng/come2hk-scheme.html

 

Evidently there's still a quota to cross by land from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, someone said.