China Railway Corporation (CRC) will be selling advance tickets for 60 days for online and telephone bookings from December 1, extending it from the current pre-sale period of 20 days. Tickets for the 2015 Spring Festival period will be on sale from December 7. Ticketing through other points of sales such as station ticket counters will continue to be limited to trips within two days.
CRC information officer Hao Cheng said the extension would be implemented in three phases – advance ticketing will be extended from 20 days to 30 days from December 1, and then further extended by six days per day from December 2-6, and eventually extended to 60 days from December 6.
”Students returning to their hometowns for Spring Festival tend to travel between January 15 to the March 15. CRC has set aside tickets for students traveling during this period,” he said.
He said three measures would be implemented for ticketing for students. “First, a number of tickets for hard-seat regular services and second-class fast-train services will be reserved specifically for sale to students. Secondly, there will be an internet booking period designated for student groups’ return tickets on December 5-20. Thirdly, students can purchase tickets through online and telephone bookings, ticketing counters and vending machines from December 21,” he said.
“The early issue of tickets for regular train services will also give workers more transport options,” he added. “While the 60-day advance tickets are limited to regular services, CRC will release tickets on additional train services and unused ticketing quotas for students to workers from mid-January.”
”We will improve the ticket refund and rescheduling process, adopting the refund and reschedule policy implemented for the spring homecoming peak period of 2014. Ticket rescheduling for travel during the peak period will incur a 20% surcharge,” he said.(Translation by David)
