Some hotels will not check you in, and they will not tell you first

This is the one that can genuinely ruin an evening. You arrive, you hand over your passport, and the person at the desk looks apologetic and says no. Not rudely, not negotiably. They cannot check you in.

It is not about you. Hotels have to register every guest with the police, and plenty of smaller or older properties simply are not set up to file a foreign passport. So they do not take foreign guests, and the booking you made on a site that did not know that is now a problem.

Domestic booking apps usually flag which properties accept foreign guests. International sites mostly list only ones that do, which is exactly why their selection looks thinner and pricier than what you can see on a map.

The photographs are true and incomplete

The room really is the room. What the frame leaves out is the window facing a lightwell, the construction site that started in March, or the fact that reception is on the eleventh floor of an office tower and the lift is shared with a dental clinic.

Look at the guest photographs instead of the hotel's. Worse lighting, much better information.

Read the reviews properly

Chinese reviews are blunt in a way that is extremely useful. People will tell you which floors get road noise, that the shower drains slowly, that the metro is fifteen minutes away rather than the five the listing implies, and whether staff coped with a guest who spoke no Chinese.

Sort by recent, not by helpful. A hotel under new management six months ago is effectively a different hotel with the same photographs.

The deposit

Almost everywhere takes one at check-in, held against the room and released when you leave. On a foreign card the release can take a few days to actually appear. It is normal. It is still alarming if nobody has told you.

Questions people ask

Why do some Chinese hotels refuse foreign guests?

Hotels must register guests with the police, and some properties are not equipped to register foreign passports. It is an administrative limit rather than a preference.

Are Chinese hotel reviews reliable?

Generally yes, and they are unusually specific about noise, distance and cleanliness. Sort by recent, since management changes matter.

Do I need to show my passport at check-in?

Yes, always. It is also how the hotel completes your police registration for you.

More from the blog

• The errand you probably already did without noticing
• Beijing South and Beijing West are not the same building
• Why your map pin is on the wrong side of the river