travelling from sydney australia to paris via beijing.

Question

We were travelling from Australia to Paris via Beijing. Our flight was to have a technical stop at Shanghai and then we would be 25 hours at Beijing where we had booked a hotel for the night. I checked before leaving and was told that we could get a 72 hour visa at Beijing airport.  We were not allowed on the flight and were told it was because of the technical stop at Shanghai (which was not actually mentioned on our itinerary).We contacted our travel agent who said there was nothing they could do so we had to pay 2400 Australian dollars for a different flight it get us home.

Rob · Answer

You were correctly denied boarding. Two stops in China (Shanghai and Beijing) immediately limits you to 24 hours direct transit in China.

Mrs white · Answer

Yes but how were we to know that there would be 2 stops if it was not mentioned on our itinerary?

John Doe · Answer

That was never a technical stop, it was intended for passengers to switch planes while keeping the same flight number. Most technical stops today are like that.

Mrs white · Answer

Whatever it was called it was not on our itinerary so how were we to know a 72 hour visa would not suffice.  How do we get our money back when all the travel agent says is that the visas were our responsibility.  Our original flight itinerary said there was a 'technical stop' but the travel agent changed the itinerary so we were leaving Beijing a day later but didn't say, on the new itinerary, that there was a stop at Shanghai.  Just for info, what visa would we have needed.We cannot afford the 2400 Australian dollars we had to pay for a new flight so any tips on how to aproach the travel agent to get a refund?

John Doe · Answer

You'll have to settle this through small claims court or report this to your local news agency.

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Travelling from Sydney Australia to Paris via Beijing. Why were we not allowed to board our flight