Dear Fodorites,

I've booked my air travel (using frequent flier miles!) to China for October 21-November 3.

I understand that I have to provide a copy of my airline ticket and hotel confirmations as part of my visa application (I'm a US citizen).

1. Will an e-mail confirmation from the airline work, since I don't have a paper ticket?
2. The hotel confirmation part seems to contradict the advice that I've seen about just showing up at a hotel and asking if they have rooms. I can of course go to hotel websites and make a few reservations just so I have hotel confirmations for my visa application. Is someone going to check to make sure that I'm actually in those hotels on the days I listed? Or can I change my mind and stay at different hotels after I arrive in China?
3. If I wait until September to apply for my visa, will that be enough time?


Thanks!

You have plenty of time, and after the Olympics, China may go back to its prior policy, and you won't need to submit any airline and hotel confirmation.

i picked up my Chinese visa on Monday of this week. It's dated 3JUN and I have to enter China within 30 days (3JUL), so it seems that you have to apply within 30 days of your trip. It only take 4-5 working days for the visa to be processed.

A confirmation of your flights is fine. I submitted only email confirmation, and many of the people in line with me had email confirmations as well (as in, I didn't see any airline tickets in hand). The "application collector" said that I had to present a confirmation for all hotel bookings including dates and confirmation numbers. I didn't ask her if these rules were different, say due to the Olympics and more restrictions.

Our visas are good for one entry within three months of being issued. At least they better be as we don't leave until August.

Excuse previous post - obviously I hit the wrong key.
Now to my post:
I sent in the application for a visa for China (and Viet Nam) only to get a phonecall today saying that the photos were not professional. All right - I cheated a bit by sending in photos that I took on my camera and printed at home - but I was hoping they would be ok. Now we have to go to the camera store tonight and have our pictures taken. What a nuisance, but I guess I asked for it.
A tip - when the application says "professional photos only" they evidently mean it. Don't try to same a couple of dollars!

When applying for an Indian visa last fall, we took closeups with a digital camera, printed them at home and they were accepted with no problem. We worked directly with the Indian Embassy, rather than something like Visas International.