FAQ: How to buy train tickets in China? What am I doing wrong?!?!?!

[smh254]

I went to go buy soft sleeper train tickets for Beijing to Xi'an this evening. I have family in town and we wanted to go this Friday. I went to the ticket window on Xueyuan & ChengFu Lu in Wudaokou. I got there at 6:45 and the line was HUGE - it wrapped all around the parking lot. At 8pm, I finally made it to the window only to find out that there were no sleeper beds available (hard or soft) for ANY of Friday's trains to Xi'an.

What am I doing wrong? I've received so much conflicting information about when train tickets go on sale. How is that ALL the sleeper beds are sold out for EVERY train going to Xi'an?

I had this problem last fall as well when trying to book tickets to Shanghai and Qingdao. We practically got stranded in Qingdao because there were no tickets available to come home and I had to fork out a bunch of cash to take a flight How does one buy tickets for a return journey?

Is there some sort of guanxi system that allows people to buy up the tickets early? Something that us foreigners might not know about?

Also, can anyone clarify the dates in which train tickets go on sale? I read on a website that Z train tix go on sale 10 days ahead of time. Also, everyone says that tickets go on sale 3 days in advance, however, the tickets for Friday went on sale today (4 days in advance). I only found out about this because I went to the ticket window yesterday and they told me to come back today at 7pm.

This is absolute insanity.

Can someone please write a proper, knowledgeable FAQ about this subject? We've been in China for 7 months and have yet been able to figure out this Kafka-esque system :evil:

Edited March 30, 2009 at 01:02 PM by smh254

[skylee]

I don't know the answers to your questions but you might want to ask them on the Thorntree too.

[roddy]

Not sure why there'd be such a queue right now, it's not like there are any holidays coming up. If it's any help, there's a list of train ticket outlets, you might find one nearer or quieter. They should all be on the same network, so it won't actually help availability.

Xi'an's always been a hard one to get as it's such a popular tourist destination. I'm surprised there was just nothing available, but maybe they're getting snapped up by tourist groups and or touts - I think there are rules on how many tickets one person can buy at a time, but you know what rules are for. Might be worth trying an agent (must be some on campus or in places like the Xijiao Hotel) who'll have someone to go and queue, or have connections.

[imron]

Not sure why there'd be such a queue right now, it's not like there are any holidays coming up.

You mean except for the 3 day nationwide holiday starting this Friday for Qingming Jie?

[roddy]

Oh, is that a holiday now? Well, that's your answer then.

[imron]

Yeah, they divvied up May Week, so now we get single day holidays on a bunch of traditional Chinese festivals.

[Lu]

Smh: I have good experiences with travel agents. Of course you'll have to pay a little more than just the ticket, but generally they can actually get you a ticket better than you can do it yourself. There used to be one in the alley near the iron gate between the campus and the Xijiao hotel (this was some years ago, so not sure if it's still there). Good luck!

[roddy]

There are now limited numbers of return / onward tickets available, allegedly, from a special window at 北京站. See here.

Imagine if you could go online and buy tickets months in advance, from anywhere in the country to anywhere else. Wouldn't that be great.

[imron]

On a recent trip to Beidaihe I bought a return ticket from Beijing from one of the authorized ticket resellers near my work.

[zerolife]

As others have said, you are simply too late, especially if you plan to travel during a holiday. Chinese trains are notoriously overcrowded. It's not like in the US where probably 95% of the people have never taken a train (I'm talking about Metro trains)

Yes there is a Guanxi system. I've been stranded in Qingdao once too without a return ticket and it wasn't even a holiday. Anyway to make story short, I was really lucky that I was able to get hold on a friend who has a very strong guanxi to someone from the railroad agency there. Don't bother kissing up to that cleaning lady or the ticket girl. It probably has to be a higher ranked official or someone from the office. Basically, there were two, yes two train cars that seems to be reserved for the Guanxi system. At least I don't have any other explaination when the ticket office told us that the train is fully booked when the train car we were had only two parties of no more than 10 people.

Three days doesn't sound right ... more like 10 days. For holiday travel, I've usually booked at least a week in advance.

You could book train tickets online you know with authorized third party reseller. Just google and you should come up with some information. They will basically deliver the ticket to your place free of charge I think same day.

Also, try the train station ... I don't know maybe they have more tickets reserved for sale there. My understanding is that all the ticket places around Wudaokou are actually something like an authorized third-party reseller.

As a last resort, like black cabs, there are also black ticket vendors at the train station. I've always seen people walk up to me asking me if I want a ticket. I believe these guys know which tickets are hot and get them in advance for resale. It's going to be more expensive and from what I've heard, you are running into the risk of getting fake tickets. They are going to catch you when two people have the same seat/bed number and throw you off the train. So I would only take this route as a very last resort

[zerolife]

i just remembered, another option is to get a soft seat and then upgrade to a sleeper on the train. There are always people who ended up not on the train... right when you board the train, ask the attendant where on the train you can upgrade and line up early

[yonglin]

At least I don't have any other explaination when the ticket office told us that the train is fully booked when the train car we were had only two parties of no more than 10 people.

I don't think that all train stations in China have a fully centralized/synchronized ticketing system. Instead, major train stations along the train route are given a quota of soft-seat/sleeper tickets, and these seats cannot be sold at the 补票 desk until the train has passed that particular station. This would explain why there might be seats/sleepers empty even though people very much want to buy them. I'm sure with some guanxi it would be possible to buy one of these tickets anyway, but it doesn't mean that they're "reserved for guanxi".

[zerolife]

@yonglin

you are probably right, I didn't think about that possibility. We only took Qingdao -> Beijing but the train actually went further than Beijing I believe so those two cars might be reserved for passengers that board in BJ.

However, the guanxi system definitiv still exist as both us and the other group on the same train car paid on the train for the ticket. The "train attendant" clearly already knew that we don't have the ticket.

[xucencen]

In short, Chinese train tickets are always out of sale cuz the demand is beyond its supply.

When it goes for festival, there's a tradition for Chinese to go back home sharing days with their family, almost 70% of them will choose to take a train, so it's easy to understand why it's hard to get a train ticket and u have to buy it in advance.

Generally speaking, train tickets go on sale 10 days ahead, u can buy it at the network place(I don't know how to translate it in EN, CH is "代售网点" dai4 shou4 wang3 dian3) and pay for an extra 5 yuan fee. I do not recommend u buying tickets at the train station, the queue is horrible and I'm not sure if u can get an available seat.

ps: before setting ur itinerary, u should check if it's around some Chinese traditional festival and consider the option to avoid these days. Good luck...lol