[iOS] Alipay for foreginers - Tourpass

Recently, I went to Shanghai for business travel, and as usual, I didn't bring much cash, assuming my corporate Amex card or at least some of my credit card (Visa, MasterCard...) would work. However, pretty much only limited shops accepted "western" credit cards and my business trip was miserable.

 

I tried to enable WeChat pay or Alipay, however without local bank, ID and mobile phone nuber, setting up these payment methods was not possible at that time.

 

Alipay announced that they launched Tour Pass in November, so I was happy to reinstall Alipay app on my iPhone  for trial and it worked!! I bet the set up step is quite similar for Androids phones.

 

Before going further, here are couple of important information about Alipay as of December 6, 2019:

• This service is free of charge till December 31, 2019
• This prepaid card is valid for 90 days and automatically cancelled when expired
• After expiration, the remaining balance will be refunded to the card used to load the prepaid card

Step 1. Install Alipay app from App Store

Make sure download Alipay, not AlipayHK version.

Alipay app from Appstore

Step 2. Sign up

Type in your country code and phone number. Then, it will sms your registration code. Non-China country code and phone number worked.

Sign up

Step 3. Search 'tour pass' in the search box

Type tourpass in the search box to bring up Tourpass mini program.

Step 4. Tap TourPass to registration page

Tap TourPass in search results.

TourPass search results

Step 5. Select amount (CNY) to charge

Select desired amount to charge. For one week travel, I just selected 1000 CNY, which leads me to the next step.

Charge Tour Pass

Step 6. Load money

You need passport and credit card details in this step. One minor tip. Fill out all information including card info, then upload the passport picture. It's a bit easier this way. 

Load money

It will ask to take a picutre of the passport (not accepting existing passport picture). Also, it is very picky about the quality of picture you are taking. Tried multiple times to get my passport picture accepted by the app,

Uploading passport picture

Step 7. Service confirmation

You are almost there. Click Confirm & Pay to finish the set up!!

*Note: I tried my JCB card but it failed. MasterCard worked.

 

Confirm and pay

Step 8. Use Alipay!! 

Click "Pay" icon to open up the Alipay.

Now ready to pay and enjoy cashless travel :).