Never mind that high speed trains in China are (a tad) expensive (comparatively): You pay for the service, including this little bit of tech convenience — of buying the tickets in the comfort of your own home, in front of your computer. Yours truly lives about 5 minutes (by foot) from a ticket agent — and he lazily wishes that place didn’t close after, say, 8 PM…
Happily, this is reality — now: Since September 30, 2011, the rule is that those who travel by high speed rail (where train numbers start with the letters C, D or G) in China have the option to get their tickets online at 12306.cn, the online ticketing system provided by the Chinese Rail Ministry, provided you provide passport information (for expats) and pay via credit card (mainland-issued ones work best, if you have one).
However, the rules are about to change (according to news reported widely in PRC media): with effect from November 20, 2011, you will be able to buy tickets for Z trains, which are mainly for overnight sleepers. (With effect from December 10, 2011, you’ll also be able to buy tickets for T trains, which offer mainly long-haul (read: pretty slow) services.) Of note: these trains are not high speed trains and thus are (at least momentarily) exempt from the ID requirement.
That’s a bit of a problem: you might have to get up super-early (at 5 AM, when the online ticket sales site “comes to” every day; sales end at midnight every day) to get your sought-after sleeper ticket. The expansion of online train ticket sales to non-high speed trains means that you’ll have more options, but you’ll also have to contend with those notorious scalpers, who will get you mobile, of course — but they themselves also need to pocket cash that — well, legally speaking, they should not have been allowed to earn in the first place.
The remaining “good news” is that by the end of the year, you’ll likely be able to get any ticket for any train on the Internet. But without the real ID requirement for non-express trains, it means that it’ll also be harder for you to get a ticket — while not paying extra to “those on the dark side”… Let’s hope the ID requirement is expanded to all trains, so that you’re afforded your fair chance at a ticket.
The worst thing about buying tickets online here in China is that they assume you know Mandarin Chinese. Sorry folks: No English version (yet). Worse, some parts of the site suffer from pretty bad interface design.
In the world of online tickets, PRC citizens may rejoice at using their 2nd-generation ID card as a ticket at certain fare gates in modern HSR stations, but for the average expat, you’ll need to claim your “real” ticket at the counter in a train station; alas, your ticket does not come in the form of a scannable QR code, as might be the case in more “advanced” countries. (Although in China, a QR code on your ticket might not be a good thing at all — your identity could be at risk!)
And while we moan about the poor execution of Chinese train ticket sales on the Web, Mac users will probably be disappointed to note that most payment channels require the use of a PC (or Windows on an Intel Mac) — you are forced to install some kind of “special, phishing-deterrent password keyboard” just to finish the transaction.
When the extra bit of software to let you do that on the Mac outruns the price of a ticket to Shanghai on a nice, deluxe lie-flat seat, you might wonder why you’d want get a ticket online in the first place. Run to your nearest station. At least there, they allow you to pick a seat by the window… instead of some random, computer-assigned middle seat…
PS: At the end of every finalized, paid sale, always note your Order Number (订单号; which you’ll need when you pick up your “real” ticket); if you lose it, well, you’ve lost it. (Urgh.) If buying tickets requiring ID registration, PRC Mainland citizens will need to use their 18-digit ID card number; folks from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan will need to use the PRC Mainland-issued document of mainland entry instead of a “plain-vanilla” passport; and foreigners must use a passport.
Your name must be typed as one word (no spaces; surname first) in small caps, and any letters in your document of identity may need to be entered in small caps as well. Finally, hold on to your ticket until the very end of the journey: if you lose it, you’ll need to pay for another one!
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