Reporters learned from China Railway Corporation: To further facilitate ticket refunds and changes, starting September 1, 2013, the railway authorities will adjust the rules for refunding and rebooking train tickets, enabling nationwide refund and rebooking, and also implement a tiered refund policy.
It is understood that starting September 1, passengers can refund or change their tickets not only at the original departure station or the station where the ticket was purchased before the scheduled departure time, but now they can do so at any station before the scheduled departure time.
At the same time, to make better use of transportation resources, encourage passengers to plan their ticket purchases more effectively, and facilitate more convenient travel, the railway authorities will implement a tiered refund policy. That is, if the refund is requested more than 48 hours before the scheduled departure time from the departure station, a 5% refund fee will be charged; if the refund is requested between 24 and 48 hours before departure, a 10% refund fee will be charged; if the refund is requested less than 24 hours before departure, a 20% refund fee will be charged.
In recent years, although the railway authorities have taken various measures, due to the overall limited capacity of the rail system, the phenomenon of “tickets being hard to get” still exists during peak periods such as Spring Festival travel rush, summer vacation, short holidays, and “Golden Weeks.” Moreover, the large volume of ticket refunds during these peak times has further exacerbated the tight supply. Ticket refunds show two main characteristics: first, the volume of refunds increases with passenger flow — the higher the passenger flow, the greater the volume of refunds. In the early stage of this year’s summer vacation travel period, the average daily number of refunds was double the usual amount, up 50.4% year-on-year; during this year’s Spring Festival travel rush, the average daily number of refunds was three times the usual amount, up 110% year-on-year.
Second, the timing of refunds is concentrated within 24 hours before departure. The proportion of refunds made within 24 hours before departure is 73.5%, those made between 24 to 48 hours before departure account for 11.7%, and those made more than 48 hours before departure make up 14.8%.
The reason for this phenomenon is often that passengers book tickets for different times, train services, and seat classes simultaneously, and only cancel the extra bookings when it's close to departure time. This increases the difficulty of reselling refunded tickets and leads to a waste of railway transportation resources. The tiered refund policy will speed up ticket turnover, give passengers more time for secondary bookings, and facilitate travel for others.