Caravanistan

I am still confused about this topic. Aren't there companies that allow you to buy fully-refundable flight tickets for an extra charge?

the point for me was to not pay at all and to not to put any bankcard's infos in the process..

anyway I successfully got the visa submitting yatra's temporary flight reservations.. the "hold on" option decays the 4th day, u are able to print a paper with name and PNR number (and with clearly written it's an hold on reservation and u will have to pay etc but it wasn't a prob for me)
it's possible to hold only three flights per time..

Yeah, if you're looking for a service that will let you book a flight and hold the reservation for weeks or months at a time with absolutely no charge and not even a credit card number, you're not going to find that.

never asked for weeks or months, dunno where u came up with that.. eventually just few days to get through the embassy's process in case they check..
and anyway my whole point was to get some precise infos and not just the usual "jaaa go here and there click up and down fake this and that" which is not helping.. yatra is totally doable, but u might want to know few things about it, as i have written in the previous post..

Sorry, I just remember 3 days not being long enough for you. Obviously most people find it relatively easy to make fake bookings, but they're probably also willing to pay a tour agency a few dollars to do this for them and/or don't think an embassy is going to contact an airline to vet their tickets.

I know you have to show return flights to get a China visa. I intend booking flights then cancelling them as we will travel overland. Is there a “best airline” to facilitate this at minimum cost?

asiana allow same day cancellation for free. probably some other airlines do same

We used Aeroflot online tickets.
They can easily be cancelled

Hi all
On this topic - I’m planning on Moscow/Uzbekistan/Kazakhstan and then into China via Xinjiang, all by rail. So was planning to apply from London for the Chinese visa with cancellable flights London to Beijing, hotel etc.
However I’ve now realised I’ve already got my Russian transit visa in my passport which, if you read Cyrillic, says I’m transitting to Uzbekistan. If they really scrutinise my passport, they’ll look at dates and could throw doubt on what I’m telling them are my travel plans - how come you’re going to Uzbekistan via Moscow, and then claiming you’re flying from London to Beijing a week or two later?
Anyone got any knowledge/experience of whether they will really look at my passport that closely? Are they highly suspicious of all or is it generally a process they follow “flights in tick, hotel tick, flights out tick” etc.?? Should I bother to come up with some other vaguely plausible route to explain my Russian visa, which may make finding cancellable flights a bit trickier?
Realise no guarantees etc but would really appreciate a best guess from experienced hands, for a first time Chinese visa applicant!

Hi,

I just got my visa from the London embassy and I very much got the impression it was a box-ticking exercise
I was a bit worried since I had already booked internal flights in XinJiang etc. but it went just fine

Given the number of people you see in the visa center, I highly doubt they have time to check on everyone