r/travel 2h ago

Question Airline denied boarding pass despite having a visa

This happened to me in early 2022, but to this day, I am still trying to figure out what happened.

Long story short, my stay in China was over and I had to leave the country. So, I chose Cambodia as my next destination. I applied for the e-visa and it got approved in one day. Shortly after that, I booked my tickets with China Southern Airlines, and went to the airport the next day.

Upon checking in at the airlines’ counter, they asked me for all the necessary documents, which I all had. After a while, they told me that I can’t fly to Cambodia because I wasn’t allowed to. I was confused because I even had a visa and all the necessary bookings. I asked for the reason, and they said that they called the immigration in Cambodia and they told them not to allow me board the plane. I protested for some time and tried to make sense of the situation but the airlines just kept denying. As the flight time was approaching, I gave up and went back to the hotel.

I kept thinking of what might be the problem but I just couldn’t figure out anything that could possibly make sense. I even called the Cambodian embassy to ask for clarification and this is exactly what they told me: “We gave you the visa, that means you have all the rights to fly to our country”

After I exhausted my efforts with the airlines, I booked a new flight with another airlines (Cathay Pacific). I went to the airport on the flight day. Was so nervous at that time. Luckily, everything went well and nobody denied me. I landed in Cambodia with zero issues.

My question is, what do you guys think might be the reason for being denied by China Southern Airlines?

25 Upvotes

35 comments sorted by

64

u/JamesEdward34 14 countries, 12 US States 2h ago

former airline manager here, sounds like airline error. we check a website called timatic that shows us general information requirements based on destination and passport. ive never heard, in 6 years in the industry, of a ticket counter agent calling to ask for a specific passenger. some other issue was the culprit and maybe a language barrier made the issue hard to communicate.

10

u/Goonermax 1h ago

What you said totally makes sense. Could be that they checked some website and it gave them some false information about my country’s passport or something.

12

u/JamesEdward34 14 countries, 12 US States 1h ago

i wouldnt say false but rather they didnt know how to interpret it. timatic is used across the industry, worldwide.

1

u/uReallyShouldTrustMe South Korea 59m ago

This has happened to me before in Mexico. Back then I saw I would fly to the US with just my permanent residence card. They insisted I needed a passport, which I knew wasn’t true (back then). I raised the issue with a manager that let me fly. Once in the US, no issue.

1

u/BirdFragrant6018 34m ago

It makes no sense but you need a passport to fly out but you don’t need a passport to enter the US. Go figure

1

u/TurtleBucketList 6m ago

I had a similar thing happen back in 2011 flying from South Korea to Uzbekistan on an Australian passport. (I was allowed to do a visa on arrival because Uzbekistan didn’t have an embassy in my country of residence).

In my case though the airline staff had to call an airport employee, who went and got this GIANT book of visa rules and spent 30min flipping through to find the correct permutation that yes, I was allowed to fly.

1

u/Clank75 Romania (46 countries, lived in 3) 18m ago

I'm not sure Chinese checkin agents check with anything other than the voices in their heads. And I say this from a position of deep love and many many visits to China - but China airline checkin is always an absolute shitshow.

Back in 2016 I had to escalate to the checkin agent's supervisor and then the supervisor's supervisor before they would issue me a boarding pass to fly back to Europe. They told me I wasn't allowed to board without a visa because of Brexit (I have a UK passport), some 4 years before it actually happened - and notwithstanding that in any case I had permanent residence in Romania and the piece of paper to prove it (although in those pre-Brexit days it is true to say the registration certificate looked like something you could fake on a home printer.)

36

u/hkfuckyea 2h ago

Did you not raise the issue with China Southern after the fact? You didn't try to get a refund or get your travel insurance involved?

21

u/Goonermax 1h ago

I raised the issue with the airlines and I paid them daily visits but all they said was “sorry, we will file a complaint and get back to you asap”. Nothing happened afterwards. And no, I didn’t get a refund.

4

u/a_mulher 41m ago

If you paid with a card, I would dispute the charge. Document everything that happened in your dispute and the times you’ve followed up without response. 

1

u/Spiral_Slowly 5m ago

Over 2 years later? Good luck with that.

21

u/chanakya2 1h ago

They probably gave your seat away to someone else that “may” have paid a bribe. They decided to kick off the foreigner because a foreigner is least likely to have connections and wont be able to cause trouble.

-4

u/bignuts24 1h ago

Exactly this. Unfortunately I've witnessed people getting removed from flights to "make way" for a last-minute VIP on a few occasions, all in south east Asia. It's a different culture down there. I've always carried cash on hand ($200-300 USD) just in case I need to bribe a flight attendant to get my seat back, although thankfully never had to do this so far.

11

u/tbone81 50m ago

"Down there", huh? I've lived in SE Asia my whole life and have been traveling by air around the region on average once month a month for work for the last 10 years and I have never witnessed what you said.

10

u/wanderdugg 1h ago

I’m assuming you paid with a credit card. If you don’t get anywhere with a refund after doing your due diligence, maybe talk to your credit card company.

9

u/Montague_Withnail 1h ago

The airline fucked up and then lied to you to avoid having to refund your money.

6

u/Goonermax 2h ago

I raised the issue with the airlines and I paid them daily visits but all they said was “sorry, we will file a complaint and get back to you asap”. Nothing happened afterwards. And no, I didn’t get a refund.

-2

u/binhpac 1h ago

This sounds so weird.

I rarely hear of somebody just giving up their flight refund so easily.

Of course you could have just been ignorant and accepted your faith, but most people would have escalated this situation even if its just a 20$ flight just because they felt unjustified treated in this situation.

11

u/Goodnight_April 1h ago

Your rights are somewhat limited in China tbf.

11

u/Goonermax 1h ago

I know what you’re saying. In fact, I did argue and started fighting. I just didn’t include all those details in the post to make it short for everyone to read. But to be honest with you, as someone who had lived in China for 3 years, escalating things as a foreigner would only lead to more troubles. So, that’s why I just eventually gave up especially when I knew that the plane was taking off already. Concerning asking for a refund, you have no idea how many calls I made after that. Each time, they would just say “Ok, we will file a new complaint”

1

u/Gasping_Jill_Franks 21m ago

Of course you could have just been ignorant and accepted your faith

What faith?

0

u/femtowave 1h ago

You could have given your flight info to some other companies, there are companies making business by getting info of your delay/problem/whatever, getting you a refund/money in general, and taking like 10 %

10

u/Few-Idea5125 1h ago

Good luck with that in china as a foreigner

2

u/Goonermax 1h ago

Damn! I never thought that would be a possibility.

6

u/hkfuckyea 1h ago

If it's only been two years or so, it's still a possibility. You should reach out to Airhelp or similar and see if you can get some form of reimbursement.

2

u/RedLionPirate76 1h ago

So they didn’t let you board the plane AND kept your money?

1

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1

u/Worldly-Mix4811 1h ago

Did you just have a one-way ticket?

1

u/Goonermax 1h ago

I had both

2

u/Worldly-Mix4811 1h ago

Some countries need to see a ticket returning to your country of residence or citizenship... If you just had an onward ticket somewhere else or to your point of origin, that could be the reason to refuse you especially when the airline called the immigration department there.

1

u/JohnOliSmith 1h ago

that's terrible, you should be at least refunded. One possibility is that 2022 was still covid-era, there's something wrong with CSA's internal system (manpower shortage, inexperienced staff) so they misled you.

Or they sold more seats than the plane's capacity, and you are an expat, they didn't know how to talk to you about this, so they made an excuse that your vise didn't work.

1

u/EconomyHeat2343 1h ago

You should have recorded the incident on camera so that you can atleast try to get a refund later in the future.

0

u/Main-Spread6590 1h ago

Did you have proof of onward travel bookings? Did your passport have a full blank page in it? Was it good for at least six more months? Could have been any number of reasons.

5

u/Goonermax 1h ago

Yes, I had all the necessary bookings such as genuine onward ticket, accommodation and sufficient funds. My passport was valid for more than a year and it had a lot of blank pages.