On September 30th, at 12:38 a.m., the mainland China railway ticketing platform 12306 issued a waitlisted ticket for a woman in Shenzhen. The train was scheduled to depart at 7:46 a.m., but by the time she woke up, the train had already left. Unfortunately, the ticket was non-refundable, and if she wanted to change to a later train, she would have to pay a change fee.
According to reports from mainland Chinese media, the woman had planned to return to Guangxi from Shenzhen North Station that day. Since direct train tickets were sold out, she placed a waitlist order on 12306.
She mentioned online that she had fallen asleep when the ticket was issued and missed the notification on her phone. Reports stated that attempts to contact her by reporters were unsuccessful.
12306 customer service stated that waitlist orders can be fulfilled at any time 24 hours a day. Passengers can set a stop time for waitlisting when placing the order; if no time is set, it defaults to 6 hours before departure. Customer service explained that the order was processed in the early morning because some passengers had cancelled their tickets or new tickets were released.
As per 12306 rules, once the train departs, tickets are non-refundable, and passengers can only change to another train before 24 hours of the departure time.
Changing to a train with available seats on the same day does not incur a change fee, but the new ticket is non-refundable. If changing to a train on a subsequent day, passengers must pay a 40% change fee based on the lower fare between the original ticket and the new ticket.
In February of this year, concerning another early morning ticketing dispute, an opinion piece published by “Extreme Vision News” suggested that 12306 should provide more prominent reminders of travel times when passengers place waitlist orders and offer additional notifications for tickets processed late at night.
This incident has sparked discussions among internet users. Some people pointed out that it’s challenging to notice notifications when tickets are issued in the middle of the night while others expressed frustration, saying, “It’s easy to sleep through it.” One netizen shared a personal experience of being charged extra because they forgot to cancel a waitlist order and complained about the late-night ticket issuances. Some individuals believe that the ticket issuance timing is not adequately arranged and advise passengers to set a cut-off time for waitlist fulfillment to avoid missing their train.