Travel · China

Travel China With Altery UnionPay Card

UnionPay is the one card China runs on. Altery is the only provider in the UK that issues UnionPay cards for UK tourists.

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Pay where Visa may not work

Everyday China is mobile-first. Local restaurants, cafés, taxis and small shops often route only through UnionPay and turn away foreign Visa and Mastercard, which tend to work only at international hotels, high-end malls and airports. UnionPay is China's domestic network — accepted from the metro gate to the coffee shop on the corner.

Get UnionPay-ready

One card instead of a workaround

Getting a foreign Visa or Mastercard to work in China usually means linking it to Alipay or WeChat Pay — more apps, more verification, and merchant charges you only discover at the till, different from one place to the next. A UnionPay card is accepted directly, and still adds to Alipay and WeChat for QR payments when you want them.

See how it works

Set up in minutes, posted before you fly

UK residents onboard with Altery in about a minute and receive a physical UnionPay card in the post, ready for the trip. Top up in GBP before you go and pay straight from your balance the moment you land — no Chinese bank account, no local SIM.

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The UnionPay card you can't get elsewhere in the UK

Altery issues a retail UnionPay travel card to UK residents under its own UnionPay programme — issued in the UK, with no third-party wallet in the way.