My Vietnamese girlfriend was denied boarding a flight back to Hong Kong after returning home for a wedding.

She is working in Hong Kong on the General Employment Policy scheme. She went home for a wedding and went to check in at Da Nang airport. She presented the slip in her passport tgat says she is permitted to stay until such and such date. They would not let her board (Hong Kong Airlines) saying this did not constitute an entry permit. She tried to plead her case but they wouldn't accept it. She is still in Vietnam needing to get back to HK for work.

The handbook for the GEP scheme I found on the HK immigration website says "Non-permanent residents of the HKSAR, irrespective of their nationality and type of travel document held, do not require a re-entry visa/entry permit to enter the HKSAR provided that they return within the currency of their permitted limit of stay and that the circumstances upon which they have acquired their residential status remain unchanged."

This suggests that she should have been able to fly and would be granted reentry with no issues, right? There is conflicting info online so we are not sure. She is thinking of applying for an expidited tourist visa but is worried that it could cancel or impact her current permit and leave a black mark on her immigration records.

Has anybody dealt with this issue before and has any advice? She is going to try to get in touch with the HK immigration enquiry line tomorrow so we'll see what they say. But surely people who are moving to Hong Kong to work are more easily able to visit home temporarily than this situation suggests.

I searched for old posts concerning this issue but there was nothing specifically discussing it.