r/chinatravel, r/chinalifer, and r/traveltochinamainland all run the same thread every few months: *what still works?* The answers change by city and by week. ExpressVPN is fine for one person in Hangzhou and dead for the next person on China Mobile Wi-Fi in Hunan. LetsVPN vanishes, then comes back on a phone and not a laptop. Astrill is called the reliable one until someone says it failed on three devices in December.
If you are buying, do not shop the brand that bought the most ads. Shop the failure modes those threads keep hitting.
Install it before you land
Apple’s China store does not carry the usual foreign VPN apps. Google Play does not work. People who wait until the hotel Wi-Fi are stuck with an eSIM or a friend with a working client. Download Windows, Android, and the account login on a network that can still reach the vendor.
Test once at home so the account actually exists. A QR or a password you have never used is a bad first hour in Pudong.
Ask how it dies, not how it markets
A client that “connects” and then drops every 30 seconds is worse than one that refuses to connect. You stop trusting it and start toggling. On China Mobile hotel Wi-Fi that toggle loop is common: connect, 10 seconds of traffic, disconnect, reconnect.
Ask:
- Does it keep a session on China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, or only on one of them?
- Is there a desktop app, or only a phone client you then tether?
- When a node dies, do you stay in the same country or get thrown across the planet?
Qiao is built as a desktop and phone app on the same account, not a browser extension. Locations are the ones in the client, not a 90-country list you will never use.
Traffic caps are a China problem
Streaming, maps tiles from abroad, App Store updates, and a day of Claude or ChatGPT chew data. A 500 GB “unlimited*” plan with a footnote is a tourist trap. You hit the cap, the tunnel crawls, you buy a second app, and now you have two logins and no idea which one leaked.
Every Qiao plan is unlimited traffic. No monthly cap, no overage. Torrents and other P2P are blocked on every node. That is the trade: you can work and watch; you cannot seed.
Local apps have to stay local
If the VPN swallows WeChat, Alipay, Didi, and your bank, you will turn it off to pay and forget to turn it back on. Split tunneling is not a luxury in China. It is how you live with the thing on.
Meridian’s Smart Flow keeps everyday Chinese apps on the direct path and sends only what needs the tunnel. Voyager is the cheaper two-device plan if you can toggle by hand.
Payment you can actually complete
Cards issued in China, Alipay, and WeChat Pay are how people here pay. A US-only Stripe checkout is how a purchase dies at the last step. Qiao’s website checkout takes Alipay, WeChat Pay, and crypto. Google Pay and Apple Pay appear on charges of $30 and above. The apps do not take Alipay or WeChat; those stay on the site.
Policy, refunds, and who you talk to
Read the refund window before you pay. Ours is 7 calendar days from the first paid purchase. After that the sale is final, except where the law says otherwise. The complimentary first day of Meridian in the app does not need a card.
Support should be an account you already have, not a Telegram handle that goes dark. Signed-in chat on qiaovpn.com becomes a ticket. Email is support@qiaovpn.com.
We do not store browsing history, DNS, or traffic contents. Servers are RAM-only. Account email, order records, and device IDs exist because a paid service cannot run without them.
A short buying list
- App installed and signed in before the flight.
- Unlimited traffic you can read in the pricing page, not a footnote.
- A way to keep WeChat and Alipay off the tunnel.
- A payment method you already use.
- A 7-day window to send it back if the first hotel Wi-Fi kills it.
Compare Voyager and Meridian. First day in the app is free.