Every year, hundreds of streams of people go back home for the Chinese Lunar New Year – the Spring Festival. During the Spring Festival of 2015, the total number of passengers across the country reached 2.8 billion. This is called “chunyun” in Chinese, which means the great pressure on the traffic system in the 40 days after the 16th December in the the lunar calendar. People choose various forms of transportation, but especially trains, mainly owing to their safety and good price ratio.
As a result, it is really difficult to get train tickets during this period. For instance, because I had class when the tickets I wanted started to sell, my father was going to help me buy a train ticket from Nanjing to Xi’an for 22nd January. But at 4:30pm on 24th November, when 12306.cn (the Railways Ministry’s official ticketing website) started to sell tickets, he refreshed the website but surprisingly found out all kinds of tickets had been sold out. As he refreshed the website from time to time in the following three days, there were still no tickets. Finally, he spent 41 more yuan to buy a ticket for a train from Wuxi to Xi’an, which stops at Nanjing Station.
The question is therefore begged, how to buy train tickets during “chunyun”? Here are some tips.
First of all, pay attention to when the tickets you want start to sell. According to the policy of the Ministry of Railways, they will start to sell tickets via 12306.cn and telephone (Tel number: 95105105) 60 days before the departure of the train. One problem is that 12306.cn still does not have an English version. Also, the process is sort of complicated. So you would want to ask a Chinese friend for help. Besides, there are also other alternatives such as station windows, ticket outlets and self-service ticketing machines. But the start time for these options is 58 days prior to departure. Self-service ticket machines also require a Chinese ID, but all other ways accept passports. Since demand usually exceeds the supply of tickets, the process of buying tickets seems like a competition; it is called “qiangpiao” in Chinese, which means “to scramble for the ticket”. Knowing you may have to scramble , it is quite important to know exactly when tickets will start being sold; as an example the start-to-sell time for trains departing from Nanjing Railway Station is 4:30pm , whereas that from Nanjing South Railway Station is 5:00pm.
Moreover, it will be much easier to purchase train tickets to the eastern and southern parts of China before Spring Festival. Western cities such as Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi’an, Zhengzhou, Lanzhou, Wuhan, Changsha are the hottest destinations almost every year. Take this for example: on 7th December, if you searched for tickets from Nanjing to Xi’an for 24th February, when “chunyun” of 2016 starts, there are no tickets for “Z” (non-stop) trains. However, there are more than 230 tickets from Xi’an to Nanjing. Therefore, if you want to have a trip by train, East and South China will be a good choice. It will also not be too cold in these places:)
In addition, be flexible with time and stops! If you cannot find tickets based on place or departure and time, try to change the place of departure. Just as with my father’s experience , if the departure place is just a stop on the line, try those pre-stops. It may be a little more expensive, but it is better than no ticket at all. Also, if you do not get the expected train, consider other ones. There is also a new policy that was introduced in June this year that may help; you can change the destination (if there are still some tickets left) 48 hours before the original departure time without any additional fee. But you can change only once. If the price of the new ticket is higher than the old one, you will be required to pay the difference; if lower, you will be reimbursed.
Furthermore, if you do not scramble for the ticket at the start-to-sell time, keep refreshing the website instead of giving up! From 7am every day, 12306.cn lets out some tickets every half an hour. What’s more, there are two key periods to get a ticket more easily than everyday refreshing. One is 40 days before the departure time, when tickets of some extra temporary trains go on sale. The other is 16 days before departure. Due to a new policy established last year whereby no charges will be incurred on tickets returned prior to 16 days before departure, this period has become ticket return peak! So, keep refreshing!
With all these tips, you have a great chance ti scramble for train tickets during “chunyun” successfully. Have a good journey!
