Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Joshea8]

Hi,

My girlfriend and I are trying to go to China for our 9-day break in January/February for Lunar New Year.

We were going to try and get a year-long multiple entry Visa so we can go back to China later in the year.

Our passports and ARC cards have well over six months on them (we just got here recently), so there shouldn't be any problems there.

We live in Ansan, south of Seoul. We went to a travel agency near us (it's actually in Homeplus). I think it's called ModeTravel. They told us they could get us a 30-day tourist Visa for 210,000 Won (we're American), and that it was impossible to get a multiple entry visa or a visa longer than 30 days. We had a Korean translating for us. We haven't done it yet because it seemed a bit nuts.

Obviously that seems a bit steep, but a secretary at our hagwon called another local travel agency and it was the same price.

So questions are... is it that expensive everywhere?

And is it actually true that we can only get a single entry, 30-day Visa?

[alwaysbeclosing100]

xanada.co.kr did a multiple entry visa for me this year before the price went up.

i actually got a double entry visa(2) and each visit was good for up to 30 days. i asked for a year but they gave me 6 months. its china.......lots of shennanigans and nothing is consistent.

i suggest dealing with a foreigner friendly travel agent like xanadu in itaewon. most K travel agents are going to be clueless about working an issue with a non-K passport.

[jomiro]

they recently changed the rules.
i have lived in china before and pretty much was set back when hearing the new visa rules.
before i was able to get a 3 or 6 months multiple entry tourist visa without any problems.
now, all i can get is a 30 days, single entry visa. thats it. i even called the chinese embassy and thats the information i got.

one year, multiple entry visas have always been for those who enter china on business or study purposes. there never was such a visa for tourists, as far as i know. (could be that way back in the mid 90's they had such a visa)

as far as the visa prices go... you are american, you gotta live with those prices.
i paid 55.000 krw for my chinese visa. but im european. i know that americans pay more for visas of several countries. i do agree tho, the price is a bit steep for such a short vacation.
if you do it through a travel agent, the price will be higher. you can also apply for the visa yourself by going to the chinese embassy, i believe. but be aware that they only accept visa applications at a certain time during the day. also, i dont know if they have application forms in english, too. my bet would be they have them in chinese and in korean. maybe in japanese (although japanese dont require a tourist visa for trips to china up to 7 days).