Chinese Lunar New Year ‘ticket snatching’ apps raise hackles
BEIJING ( Reuters) — As China gears up for Lunar New Year, when hundreds of millions of people head home, popular software charging extra to improve the odds of getting coveted rail tickets has been criticized by state media and some users as being akin to modern-day touting.
Plugged by app developers as a way to simplify purchasing, the use of the “ticket snatching” software has ballooned in recent years as more people buy on mobile devices.
”High demand for rail tickets during the New Year season cannot be an excuse for snatching apps to rob consumers, disturb public order and even push up the price,” People’s
Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, said in a commentary earlier this month.
The Chinese authorities said they want to ensure equal access to rail tickets for all during Lunar New Year, which starts on Jan. 28 this year; about three billion trips will be made in the world’s biggest mass migration.
The number of buyers outstrips seats available on trains, and leads to long queues and jostling for position when tickets go on sale.
When purchasing moved online, “snatching” software sprang up from travel and tech companies hoping to increase users’ chances of making it to the front of the virtual queue.
Shuang Xu, who works for a travel company in Beijing, started looking for tickets to her home city of Chongqing two weeks before she planned to leave for the New Year, but the official train booking website,
www.12306.cn, kept crashing. Xu paid 60 yuan extra to buy two high-speed train tickets, worth 1,535 yuan, from the capital to the southwestern city.”I had no choice but to try other ways,” she said.