I saw that the 10-day visa free has become effective for China, Oman, Qatar, etc on 3/1, but IATA hasn't updated the details yet. In the previous 7-day visa-free policy there are restrictions on which airline (Uzbekistan Airways, Korean Air, China Southern, Asiana, and Zhejiang Loong) to take in order to get the visa-free treatment. Is it going to be the rule in the new policy? Also, is it for sure that crossing by land borders won't be eligible?
Thanks a lot!
Question on Uzbekistan's 10-day visa free policy
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Thank you!
Before asking a visa question, make sure you have read the relevant visa article about the country. Overview page: http://caravanistan.com/visa/
Before submitting an embassy report or question, have a look first to see if a topic already exists. Relevant topics are linked to from the visa pages on the site.
Thank you!
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johnbian8308
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Re: Question on Uzbekistan's 10-day visa free policy
Hi John,
Land borders are not eligible.
There are no restrictions on which airline brings you in, at least not as far as I have read anywhere.
Land borders are not eligible.
There are no restrictions on which airline brings you in, at least not as far as I have read anywhere.
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johnbian8308
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johnbian8308
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Re: Question on Uzbekistan's 10-day visa free policy
Looks like IATA has updated data for China, Hong Kong and Macau for 10-day visa free policy. On IATA there is still the odd requirement for s small number of airlines to take. Other countries placed into the 10-day visa-free category aren't updated in IATA database (i.e. showing visa required)
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jiyuanzh1994
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Re: Question on Uzbekistan's 10-day visa free policy
Hi. I am a Chinese citizen who recently entered Uzbekistan under this 10-day flying-in-and-out visa free scheme and would like to share my experience at both the airline check-in counter and at Tashkent airport. (Actually I am in Samarkand, Uzbekistan writing this response and my trip has been amazing.)
I was traveling with another friend and both of us are traveling on Chinese passports. We flew into Tashkent from Almaty on Feb 20, 2023 with Uzbekistan Airways. The check-in lady at Almaty flipped through the passport and ask us where our visa is and we just said we don't need one for 10 days. She then asked for our ticket leaving Uzbekistan and printed our boarding passes out with no questions. Later I've also verified that this visa free scheme is indeed showing up in IATA travel center. Apparently the airline check-in counters in Central Asia countries are familiar with this policy.
The tricky thing starts when we get to passport control at Tashkent Airport. I am staying in Uzbekistan for 8 days, leaving on another Uzbekistan Airways flight to Astana (Nur Sultan), but the issue is that my onward ticket was bought separately and ticketed through a French airline (the cheeky travel agent did it, not me...). A bit of background knowledge on airline ticketing system though, when two airlines have something called an interline agreement, airline A can sell tickets including airline B's flight using airline A's own ticket stock, which could be identified by the first three digits of the 13-digit e-ticket number. The ticket stock of Uzbekistan Airways starts with 250- but since my ticket was issued by a French airline, the 13-digit e-ticket number starts with 275-. This created a lot of problem at passport control. First, the immigration officer said all Uzbekistan Airways ticket starts with 250-, and I had to explain the airline interline agreement thing to her, and she made a few calls only to tell me that she cannot verify this ticket. I even pulled out the UzAir app on my phone to show her, when typing in my ticket number and search, it is there. She was not buying it and put me aside to wait.
My friend's experience was not a lot better either. He was staying in Uzbekistan for only 3 days and leaving on a Korean Air flight to Seoul and then to Hong Kong, ticketed by Korean Air with e-ticket number starting with 180- (the ticket stock number for Korean Air). The immigration officer made a phone call and said this ticket cannot be verified either, putting him aside to wait just like I did. We sat down for a while and started discussing the mechanism of how this "ticket verification" at passport control works. Our guess is that the only contact number that the immigration officers have may be a contact number of Uzbekistan Airways, who is not able to verify any other airline's ticket stock, but we don't know the story behind the scene and couldn't really find out what's going on.
About 30 mins later, a representative of Uzbekistan Airways came pick us up to walk to the Transit Desk (we thought we were going to be deported once I see the transit desk sign......). He asked about our issue and started to help us. First one to be helped was me, he just entered my flight details, date and name, just to see that my ticket IS indeed in the system with the mysterious 275- ticket number. He was like "okay you can go back to the passport control now and tell them what's going on". I went back there, told the supervisor (wearing a batch written "CAPTAIN") the issue, and he was in disbelief that my ticket is actually valid. He brought me to another passport control window and the officer sitting in the window picked up the phone again to call Uzbekistan Airways, presumably the representative who helped me earlier, nodded and stamped my passport. The "CAPTAIN" was surprised and was like "I learned something new today."
My friend was still with the Uzbekistan Airways representative waiting when I passed through the passport control. He was telling me that the representative took a picture of his itinerary and ticket and send it to a representative of Korean Air in Tashkent, but there was no reply from the Korean Air representative, presumably because he is not on duty that night as there was no Korean Air flight arriving and departing on that day of the week... After another 30 minutes waiting, the Korean Air representative responded positively to the Uzbekistan Airways representative and my friend was also sent on his way to clear passport control. Same thing just like what happened to me, my friend had to wait for another lengthy phone call between the immigration officer and the Uzbekistan Airways representative and got his passport stamped.
After we got to the hotel, it was almost three hours after our flight landed... We recapped the whole experience and summarized a few issues that we are running into.
1. Immigration officer and airline representatives not familiar with interline agreement (the agreement that enables airline A to sell a flight of airline B on airline A's own ticket)
2. Immigration officer and airline representatives not familiar with foreign carriers' flight and ticket, e.g. Korean Air.
3. The way the immigration officer verifies the ticket is just by phone calls. There may have been some miscommunication, or misread of ticket numbers to the airline representative, making the initial trial to fail.
We also summarized a few tips for fellow Chinese or Hongkongers who are keen to use this 10-day visa-free scheme.
1. Make sure your flight leaving Uzbekistan is with Uzbekistan Airways, and bought directly with Uzbekistan Airways, with an e-ticket number starting with 250-.
2. Make sure you print out an itinerary and receipt, with your 13-digit ticket number on it, or even better to use a highlighter to make it obvious.
3. Try to avoid doggy travel agents, especially those online travel agents.... I can board my flight with this ticket purchased from them, but still, with a lot of complication involved.
4. Learn about basic air travel stuffs, like interline agreement, ticket number, what airline representative can see and cannot see in their system, and be ready to argue when the process isn't going the right direction...
Happy travels
Peter Zhou
I was traveling with another friend and both of us are traveling on Chinese passports. We flew into Tashkent from Almaty on Feb 20, 2023 with Uzbekistan Airways. The check-in lady at Almaty flipped through the passport and ask us where our visa is and we just said we don't need one for 10 days. She then asked for our ticket leaving Uzbekistan and printed our boarding passes out with no questions. Later I've also verified that this visa free scheme is indeed showing up in IATA travel center. Apparently the airline check-in counters in Central Asia countries are familiar with this policy.
The tricky thing starts when we get to passport control at Tashkent Airport. I am staying in Uzbekistan for 8 days, leaving on another Uzbekistan Airways flight to Astana (Nur Sultan), but the issue is that my onward ticket was bought separately and ticketed through a French airline (the cheeky travel agent did it, not me...). A bit of background knowledge on airline ticketing system though, when two airlines have something called an interline agreement, airline A can sell tickets including airline B's flight using airline A's own ticket stock, which could be identified by the first three digits of the 13-digit e-ticket number. The ticket stock of Uzbekistan Airways starts with 250- but since my ticket was issued by a French airline, the 13-digit e-ticket number starts with 275-. This created a lot of problem at passport control. First, the immigration officer said all Uzbekistan Airways ticket starts with 250-, and I had to explain the airline interline agreement thing to her, and she made a few calls only to tell me that she cannot verify this ticket. I even pulled out the UzAir app on my phone to show her, when typing in my ticket number and search, it is there. She was not buying it and put me aside to wait.
My friend's experience was not a lot better either. He was staying in Uzbekistan for only 3 days and leaving on a Korean Air flight to Seoul and then to Hong Kong, ticketed by Korean Air with e-ticket number starting with 180- (the ticket stock number for Korean Air). The immigration officer made a phone call and said this ticket cannot be verified either, putting him aside to wait just like I did. We sat down for a while and started discussing the mechanism of how this "ticket verification" at passport control works. Our guess is that the only contact number that the immigration officers have may be a contact number of Uzbekistan Airways, who is not able to verify any other airline's ticket stock, but we don't know the story behind the scene and couldn't really find out what's going on.
About 30 mins later, a representative of Uzbekistan Airways came pick us up to walk to the Transit Desk (we thought we were going to be deported once I see the transit desk sign......). He asked about our issue and started to help us. First one to be helped was me, he just entered my flight details, date and name, just to see that my ticket IS indeed in the system with the mysterious 275- ticket number. He was like "okay you can go back to the passport control now and tell them what's going on". I went back there, told the supervisor (wearing a batch written "CAPTAIN") the issue, and he was in disbelief that my ticket is actually valid. He brought me to another passport control window and the officer sitting in the window picked up the phone again to call Uzbekistan Airways, presumably the representative who helped me earlier, nodded and stamped my passport. The "CAPTAIN" was surprised and was like "I learned something new today."
My friend was still with the Uzbekistan Airways representative waiting when I passed through the passport control. He was telling me that the representative took a picture of his itinerary and ticket and send it to a representative of Korean Air in Tashkent, but there was no reply from the Korean Air representative, presumably because he is not on duty that night as there was no Korean Air flight arriving and departing on that day of the week... After another 30 minutes waiting, the Korean Air representative responded positively to the Uzbekistan Airways representative and my friend was also sent on his way to clear passport control. Same thing just like what happened to me, my friend had to wait for another lengthy phone call between the immigration officer and the Uzbekistan Airways representative and got his passport stamped.
After we got to the hotel, it was almost three hours after our flight landed... We recapped the whole experience and summarized a few issues that we are running into.
1. Immigration officer and airline representatives not familiar with interline agreement (the agreement that enables airline A to sell a flight of airline B on airline A's own ticket)
2. Immigration officer and airline representatives not familiar with foreign carriers' flight and ticket, e.g. Korean Air.
3. The way the immigration officer verifies the ticket is just by phone calls. There may have been some miscommunication, or misread of ticket numbers to the airline representative, making the initial trial to fail.
We also summarized a few tips for fellow Chinese or Hongkongers who are keen to use this 10-day visa-free scheme.
1. Make sure your flight leaving Uzbekistan is with Uzbekistan Airways, and bought directly with Uzbekistan Airways, with an e-ticket number starting with 250-.
2. Make sure you print out an itinerary and receipt, with your 13-digit ticket number on it, or even better to use a highlighter to make it obvious.
3. Try to avoid doggy travel agents, especially those online travel agents.... I can board my flight with this ticket purchased from them, but still, with a lot of complication involved.
4. Learn about basic air travel stuffs, like interline agreement, ticket number, what airline representative can see and cannot see in their system, and be ready to argue when the process isn't going the right direction...
Happy travels
Peter Zhou
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