Mobile Payment in China is the main form of payment. You can use Alipay and WeChat. Alipay (Visa & Mastercard) & WeChat Pay (AMEX users) – Alipay is recommended for Foreign visitors over Wechat because it runs into less issues while setting up and using it. Alipay also has an English translator option. I only used Alipay for payments.
You can link your local credit card to use in the Alipay app for payments in China. Highly recommend setting up your credit card in your local country before heading to China for verification purposes and to ensure a better chance it will work properly when in China. However, setting it up in your local country, you will most likely not be able to use it there.
Once you have reached 15000 Yuan of purchases (roughly $2900CAD), the app will require you to verify your identity.
You will be charged a foreign transaction fee for transactions exceeding roughly 200RMB which is typically 3% surcharge on the total purchase (applied from your credit card not the Alipay app).
Alipay may display the information in chinese however there is a little icon on the bottom left to translate to English. WeChat does not have this function.
***Pre-paid Credit cards such as Wealthsimple DO NOT work with Alipay, Wechat pay or Didi (car sharing app).
While travelling, you should keep your local sim on to receive MMS/Text Message (Turn off data roaming) as certain purchases will trigger your bank to provide a pin to allow the purchase to go through for security measures.
You will have to input your special 6 digit pin every time you make a purchase.
We found that some vendors told us to scan one QR code but it wasn’t Alipay so our payments failed however as long as you show the vendor the Alipay app, majority of them also were able to pull out a Alipay QR code to scan. We found in some restaurants even if it was Alipay QR on the tables, foreigners could not pay via that QR code and we had to manually go to the vendor to get a QR that worked.
Within the Alipay app, you can use the mini apps such as Didi and Trip.com to get car sharing without a China phone number as well as booking trains and hotels too.
High Speed Rails & Metros – You will need to add the cities metro card into your Alipay. There will also be many security check points where your bag will go through a scanner. If you are planning on using the metro or buses anywhere in China, you are going to want to set up Alipay metro cards for each city you plan on going to before leaving as the initial card set up will require a SMS code. For the Shanghai options, I chose the 2nd one which is for both bus and trains. You will need to read and agree to the terms and put in your password to get the virtual card added.
Didi – Car sharing app similar to Uber & Lyft. If you use Didi via the Alipay app, you will not require a Chinese phone number.
