From October 1, Saigon station sells train tickets for Tet Giap Ngo 2014

On September 27, Saigon Railway Passenger Transport Company announced its plan to sell train tickets for the 2014 Lunar New Year.

Passengers buy train tickets for Tet at Saigon Station. (Photo: Hoang Hai/VNA)

Accordingly, from October 1 to 5, Saigon Station will organize ticket sales for registered groups; from October 5 onwards, tickets will be sold to passengers with many ticket sales methods such as group ticket sales, ticket sales at the station (passengers get a queue number via SMS), ticket sales via website vetau.com.vn, ticket sales via phone delivered to home, through agents.

According to Mr. Dinh Van Sang, Deputy General Director of Saigon Railway Passenger Transport Company, on the occasion of Tet Giap Ngo 2014, the total number of seats from Saigon station to localities is 148,878; of which Saigon station to Vinh, Thanh Hoa, Nam Dinh, Hanoi is 98,856 seats.

Saigon Railway Passenger Transport Company will reserve 15% for Hanoi station to sell round-trip tickets, 25% for Saigon station to sell to groups and policy beneficiaries, 20% to sell to passengers according to registration numbers via SMS, and the rest will be sold via the website vetau.com.vn.

Specifically, ticket prices for Tet holiday, phase 1 (from January 14 to January 19, 2014) increased by 6-8% compared to Tet 2013 ticket prices; phase 2 (January 20 to January 29, 2014) increased by 9-10%; phase 3 (January 30 to February 2, 2014) increased by 6%; phase 4 (February 3 to February 15, 2014) increased by 2-10%; phase 5 (February 16 to February 21, 2014) increased by 6-9%.

To serve the travel demand during Tet, in addition to the 5 main train pairs (Thong Nhat) on the Saigon-Hanoi route and vice versa, Saigon station will run 9 additional train pairs (TN3/4, TN5/6, TN7/8, SE9/10, SE11/12, SE13/14, SE15/16, SE17/18, TN21/22) from January 16 to February 20, 2014 (ie December 16 to January 21 of the lunar calendar). Of which, the Saigon-Hanoi route and vice versa will increase by 5 train pairs, the Saigon-Vinh route and vice versa will increase by 2 pairs, the Saigon-Thanh Hoa route and vice versa will increase by 1 pair.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh, Head of Saigon Station, when buying tickets, passengers must present their ID card or other identification document with a photo attached; ticket sellers must write the passenger's name and the last 3 digits of the ID card on the ticket (except for odd-numbered trains after Tet from Hue to Saigon, this does not need to be written). For online ticket purchases, this year there will be 211,000 accounts for customers to register, with a maximum simultaneous access speed of 20,000.

This year, Saigon Railway Station will sell tickets to individual passengers in all forms starting from October 5th, not in the same order as before, to avoid overloading the number of online visitors. Each registered account can book up to 2 tickets.

When booking is successful, customers pay via bank, ATM card, after 5 days will go to the station to receive the ticket. To get the ticket number to buy train tickets at the station, customers text the syntax "GASG name ID number" and send to the switchboard 8205 (fee 2,000 VND/message). Each number can buy up to 4 outbound tickets and 4 return tickets.

The station will not issue queue numbers directly at the station for customers buying tickets during the peak Tet holiday period (January 20-29, 2014)./.

According to VNA - LT