Struggling to buy tickets home for Tet!
There are still more than 2 months until the Lunar New Year of Quy Ty, but to get a ticket to return home, many people had to race many months in advance.
According to the reporter, at this point, it is too late to start asking to buy a train or plane ticket near Tet even though the official ticket sale date has not yet arrived. And, the trip from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi is considered a "hot" trip.
Train tickets: sold out?
This year, Tet train tickets will officially be available for sale online starting December 1. However, according to people's feedback, even though they have not been available for sale, it is still very difficult to buy a ticket departing from Ho Chi Minh City.
As usual, not believing that she could register to buy a ticket to return home for her family during Tet, Ms. Yen (HCMC) said that she had to ask an acquaintance who works in the industry to "keep an eye out" for her. However, she said in frustration that the acquaintance replied that "there were no tickets left".
The situation of “sold out” tickets before the sale has made many people lose confidence in buying tickets in the official way (booking tickets online, buying tickets directly). In previous years, registering for tickets online was also extremely difficult. Most customers often responded that they could not log in or reported network errors. If they could buy tickets, they would only get junk tickets or 2 tickets for different trips.
Therefore, many people have tried to book in advance with the "brokers" they have known for many years. Like every year, if booking through a "broker", customers sometimes have to pay an additional 500,000/ticket. However, this year, I wonder if there will be a virtual fever created by the "brokers" when they all shout "sold out"?
When the reporter asked about buying round-trip tickets for the two days of February 5 and February 17 from Ho Chi Minh City to Binh Dinh with an acquaintance in the railway industry, this official said: if you book a few days in advance, it is possible, but now it is very difficult. Most of the routes departing from Ho Chi Minh City are very hot, the return routes are "free to enter", this official said.
To be able to go home for Tet, many people have to struggle for months to "watch" for tickets.
(illustrative photo)
According to research, December 1 is the official registration date to buy train tickets for Tet for individuals, but calling any official or unofficial hotline, it is difficult to "ask" to buy tickets departing from Ho Chi Minh City.
When asked why it was difficult to buy tickets when registration was not yet accepted, the officer said that many industry employees had also ordered tickets for "family members".
On the morning of November 24, Deputy Head of Saigon Station Thai Van Truyen said that there was no general information about how many percent of seats were left after receiving registrations from groups and priority groups departing from Saigon Station. At the same time, the information could not be publicly announced to the press.
If you want to fly, you have to accept being a "businessman"
Unlike train tickets, Tet flight tickets are sold earlier, but it is difficult to buy tickets according to each person's financial situation. Up to this point, the prices of economy class tickets from Ho Chi Minh City of airlines on the 3 peak days: February 6, 7, 8 (Lunar calendar 26, 27, 28) are almost "sold out".
An airline ticket agent in Tran Quoc Toan (Hoan Kiem, Hanoi) said that all cheap and economy class tickets from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi on peak days have been sold out. Only business class tickets remain, with prices ranging from around 5 million VND/trip/way. If any are available, they are only for flights in “inconvenient” time zones.
Although the first round of ticket sales opened on November 1, passengers wishing to buy tickets from Vietnam Airlines could not compete to buy economy class tickets.
It is known that on November 1, Vietnam Airlines started selling tickets for the first time. Mr. Dung (Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City) tried his best to "watch" but when the sale opened, he was "shocked" because the economy class tickets did not appear, if anything, there were only business class tickets with the "sky-high" price of nearly 5 million VND/person/trip.
Similarly, Ms. Hang (District 3, Ho Chi Minh City) said that although she asked for Vietnam Airlines Tet flight tickets quite early, the airline's staff said that there were only business class tickets available for more than 5 million VND/way.
Ms. Hang’s feedback is similar to that of many other customers. Like every year, right from the start of sales, passengers who want to have a plane ticket have to accept paying more for a business class ticket. Many people are skeptical about this airline’s practice of holding economy class tickets until the last minute, waiting for the price to increase, while only selling “luxury” tickets to those who can’t stand the “heat”.
Opening sales earlier, private airline AirMekong opened the first Tet ticket sales, from September 20, with the announcement that this was only the first phase. Following that, two low-cost airlines, VietJetAir (VJA) and Jetstar Pacific Airlines (JPA), announced the sale of Tet tickets. However, up to this point, customers do not have many choices in terms of ticket classes of these airlines. Particularly, VJA, although receiving new planes, has also sold out all Tet tickets on flights at good times. The ticket price of this airline on the Ho Chi Minh City - Hanoi route is 2.948 million VND/ticket/way...
Besides the difficulty in buying and scarcity of tickets, this year's Tet flights are more expensive than before. The average one-way ticket for the Saigon-Hanoi route is currently more than 3 million VND, while last year it was about 2.85 million VND. If passengers fly between 5/2 and 15/2/2012 (ie from 25th of December to 6th of Tet), they will have to pay a relatively high price. With low-cost airlines such as JPA or VJA, the common ticket price is about 2.6 million VND/ticket/way for the HCMC-Hanoi route (excluding VAT and airport fees), Air Mekong only has a price of 3 million VND.
According to Tintuc-M