I have a friend who will have about 2.5 hours layover in Bejing terminal C. Flying from HCMC Vietnam to Los Angeles, CA.
poked around online and there are a variety of mixed reviews about experiences in Bejing airport. any wisdom as to ways to make the trip more managable from folks who may have been through there recently. How much local cash to have on hand for lunch if needed.
They take credit cards at the airport, so he won’t need any Yuan. The prices aren’t worse than any other airport, but are about the same as airport prices.
The Beijing airport is just fine, really. It’s super modern and is almost exactly the same as every other airport in major cities around the world. Restaurants range from McDonalds to American style dining(like Applebes and so forth) and of course, Chinese food.
I’m not really sure what the concern would be about Beijing’s airport. It’s super busy and is not that different from LAX, really.
I’ve been at Guangzhou Airport twice in the last month, and I suspect the experience is similar. All the shops and restaurants seemed willing to take cash in any major currency. I used an Australian $10 note, to buy a 3 yuan bottle of water, and got about 65 yuan in change, which is not a bad rate of exchange – plus it was a very cheap bottle of water compared with Australian and even Japanese prices. I used the change to buy other stuff, and I’ve still got 18 yuan left over – prices were very reasonable.
I passed through PEK in both directions when I flew London to Sydney in 2011. It’s a very modern, large airport, but was oddly deserted when I was there: like it had been built to cater for 10 times as many passengers as actually use it. The architecture is pretty cool, though, and the main hall is vast by any standards.
I didn’t need any local currency - I just used credit cards. I think I ate at Pizza Hut on the way out, and a Chinese noodle-bar kind of place on the way back. Coming home I had about 6 or 7 hours to kill so I checked in to a short-stay hotel inside the terminal. Not quite a capsule hotel, but you can rent tiny rooms by the hour to get some sleep. It was a bit confusing to figure out how the system worked, as a non-Chinese speaker, but no big deal.
Don’t be tempted to buy the interesting-looking Chinese sweets in the duty-free shops. They’re universally disgusting unless you have acquired the necessary taste for bean paste 
A couple of odd things (or things I found unusual, anyway)…
You pass through immigration/passport control even if you are in transit. I got my passport stamped, both ways.
There is free WiFi, but you have to scan your passport in a little terminal, which then spits out a password. I probably wouldn’t advise performing any dodgy web searches while you’re using it. 
Oh and 3) I had to queue up in front of some kind of body-heat scanner that was being used to weed out people with fevers. I think there was some kind of flu epidemic going on at the time. I’m not sure what happened to the poor souls who showed high body temperature (from running to catch a flight, perhaps)…
I was there within the last year. The airport is clean and modern, I ate at Pizza Hut and paid with a credit card. It is a nicer airport than many in the US, IMHO.
I used the airport shops as my last opportunity to get rid of the yuan I had, but others were paying in other currency. American dollars are accepted everywhere in China, I can see how the Beijing airport would be an exception.
One note of caution:
I went through Shanghai on the way back from Asia last year with a similar layover. It’s most likely that your friend won’t have a VISA for China. Shanghai didn’t have the idea of a TRANSIT VISA or a way to circumvent immigration and customs. So I had to talk my way through immigration by showing that my itinerary had me connecting through on another flight.
In case this occurs (which seems likely given other comments here), make sure that s/he has a copy of the itinerary and ticket for the next trip somewhere easy to find, preferrably printed out and accessible. I did get through immigration but it took me a lot longer than most of the other people on my flight. Could make one antsy depending on the timing of the connection.
Also, since I was not staying, I didn’t have (or need) Yuan (Chinese money).
I didn’t have any problem passing through Beijing from UK to Australia. There’s a separate channel for transit passengers, although I remember it not being especially clearly signed. I still had my passport stamped.
But yes, make sure you have your onward ticket to hand.
The following is not likely to be helpful to anyone else, but since you asked…
I spent a few hours in the Bejing airport after visiting a factory for my old company for a week. I just hung out in a first class lounge the entire time. There was a really nice selection of food and drinks.
I ate the most delicious saltines I can ever remember. And the can of Sprite? Wow. Awesome.
Also, I was just recovering from a bout of food poisoning. Otherwise, I would have eaten other stuff.
Surely the higher-end Toto in the First Class lounge made the food poisoning worth it?
I don’t see those in the Stateside lounges, but PVG, at least, has one in the First Class lounge there.
Also, to the OP: I’ve had some excellent duck–split right down the sagittal plane of the entire bird–in one of the PEK restaurants. Don’t remember the name, but it was not one of the upscale restaurants. More like a Denny’s looking place from the outside.
Every time I see this thread title, I see it as “Being an Airport Lawyer”, no matter how many times I’ve mentally corrected it.
I think the others have covered it well. Chances are that the layover will be relatively short once he gets through the various immigration lines, which can get quite silly. Make sure you are standing in the right line for transfers, as it can be a little confusing.
Dollars are accepted, and wi-fi is available but you have to register. Yes, your usage is almost certainly monitored, but it’s really not a big deal, especially for a foreigner passing through. Just try not to organize any protests. Pretty much everyone you interact with will speak English. It’s a really, exceptionally nice airport.
If for some reason the layover lasts longer than expected, the word on the street is that the area near McDonalds can be reasonable for sleeping (I found it pretty miserable myself.) The short-term hotel, and even the benches get claimed early in the evening, so I spent a 15 hour layover sleeping on the floor at the far end of a hallway. The good part is that nobody bothered me.
This was not my experience, but maybe it’s changed. When I landed, I was supposed to meet my driver at baggage claim. But he wasn’t there.
I went up to the first uniformed person I found, and asked if he spoke English. He didn’t…but I showed him the piece of paper I had with the driver’s phone number. He pulled out his cell phone and called. Spoke for a minute or two, then walked me over to another place and signed for me to wait there. Sure enough, my driver showed up after about five minutes.
(My driver didn’t speak English either.)
American dollars are only accepted in the larger airports.
You would need to go to a bank to change dollars into yuan if you are outside any
of the larger airports.
:snipped:
No, American dollars are not accepted everywhere in China. Heck, credit cards are not accepted in a lot of places in China. Cash Yuan is the main deal if you live there or are outside an airport or hotel.
However, for the purposes of this thread, a credit card is the way to go. The airport takes them and your friend will not have to get any Chinese money.
