The first battle of the 2024 Spring Festival: the "ticket grabbing artifact" that can't grab tickets

"This year, the cross-regional movement of people across the country will reach 9 billion, a record high. ”

Text / Ba Jiuling

"I waited for six days, and I didn't succeed in grabbing a full ticket or a ticket for the previous stop. ”

"When I arrived, it showed that it was not on sale, and after a minute, it showed that there were no tickets, and I couldn't understand it more and more. ”

In recent days, many people have had an urgent task - open 12306, open major travel apps, and grab tickets to go home for the New Year.

Since January 26, the 2024 Spring Festival has officially kicked off and will last for 40 days.

As the saying goes, the world's largest animal migration is not migratory birds, but Chinese returning home for the Spring Festival.

It is predicted that the cross-regional flow of people across the country will reach 9 billion this year, a record high. Specifically, the commercial passenger traffic of railways, highways, waterways, and civil aviation during the Spring Festival will reach 1.8 billion, more than 200 million more than in 2023. Based on the calculation that one person needs to take the bus four times back and forth, it is equivalent to an additional 50 million people on the move.

The days of conformity are approaching, no, only two days later, topics related to the Spring Festival began to jump on the hot search list, and the first place is the ticket grabbing artifact.

The "ticket grabbing artifact" that can't grab tickets

Looking back on the past, even if you haven't used the ticket-grabbing artifact, you must have helped your friends grab tickets.

The so-called ticket-grabbing artifact refers to the ticket-buying service provided by a third-party ticketing platform. Looking at the marketing language alone, it can be understood that in the case of tight ticketing, the platform will provide consumers with various services such as intelligent ticket grabbing, ticket grabbing acceleration, dual-channel ticket grabbing, and advance reservation.

Among them, some platforms will also provide paid services to help users grab tickets and waitlist services 24 hours a day. Later, "can't grab the compensation" and "can't get the refund" were also posted in a conspicuous position.

In the case of difficulty in grabbing tickets, there is one more way to be a little more comforting, and there is a chance to succeed, even if you pay some money.

It is precisely by grasping this pain point of the Spring Festival that since 2019, the ticket-grabbing artifact has become a major selling point of the Spring Festival on various platforms, and at the peak, a total of more than 50 platforms have launched the Spring Festival ticket-grabbing service.

Grab the ticket package interface

In the ticket grabbing strategy released by netizens this year, their "merits" were also mentioned: "Personal test, place an order in advance on a certain platform to grab, pre-fill the information at 12306 on the day of sale, and go crazy to grab tickets and waitlist for each pre-selected train on the sale, a two-pronged approach." I have never grabbed a ticket at the peak before, but this time I grabbed it, and I can't say whose credit the official and platform are. ”

Some people succeeded, and some people broke the news and were cheated.

Ms. Gong from Shanghai found that she used a ticket-grabbing artifact to buy a train ticket from Shanghai to Guiyang, but in the end she grabbed a train ticket from Shanghai to Hangzhou. After consulting the platform, he was told that "the platform will help grab tickets from Hangzhou to Guiyang next".

After restoring the operation of the ticket-grabbing software, Ms. Gong found the reason: the "ticket-grabbing" plan planned by the ticket-buying platform was to help her buy tickets for the two sections of the same train "Shanghai to Hangzhou" and "Hangzhou to Guiyang".

Unexpectedly, the ticket sources of the two sections were very tight, and the final result was that half of the "success" was achieved, and there was a big oolong.

From this point of view, it seems that the technology of the ticket grabbing artifact needs to be strengthened.

Tianyancha data shows that as of January 24, 2024, there are more than 10 patent applications related to "ticket grabbing", including "ticket grabbing method, equipment and storage medium", "ticket grabbing authentication system", "display screen panel with train ticket grabbing graphical user interface", etc., some of which have been authorized.

But the essential problem is that the ticket-grabbing artifact is not as magical as it is in marketing, and it has nothing to do with the official ticket-buying app.

In fact, a few years after the appearance of the ticket-grabbing artifact, it was not until 2021 that 12306 refuted the rumors and reminded the public: 12306 has never authorized any third-party platform to handle train ticket business...... The so-called "acceleration package" does not have the right of priority to purchase tickets, no matter which third-party software you buy tickets in, you need to queue up in the railway 12306 ticketing system.

Buy train tickets

As for the so-called "professional terms" on those platforms, they are actually all "language arts", such as:

"Advance reservation" locks in the sales time announced by the railway department, so that tickets can be purchased as soon as possible;

"Dual-channel grabbing" refers to paying attention to the remaining tickets and standby tickets at the same time;

"Ticket grabbing acceleration" means that the platform uses background software to send ticket purchase requirements to Railway 12306 in a timely manner;

"Ticket grabbing" refers to the platform arranging personnel to go to the railway 12306 offline channel to purchase tickets;

"Buy a few more stops" refers to buying tickets for a few stops after the destination station, so as to achieve "buying long and sitting short";

"Changing seats on the same train" refers to buying tickets for different sections of the same train and combining them to reach the destination.

In other words, what everyone thinks of as "technology and hard work" is just asking a "digital scalper" to help buy tickets.

For these scalpers, 12306 is also in the effort of "one foot higher".

In the same Tianyancha patent related to the keyword "grab tickets", there is also one from the official ticketing app - 12306, which reads:

"In November 2021, the Institute of Electronic Computing Technology of China Academy of Railway Sciences Group Co., Ltd. and China Railway Technology Co., Ltd., an affiliate of 12306, applied for a patent of 'a method and system, equipment and storage medium for preventing automatic ticket grabbing'. ”

Therefore, all kinds of "ticket grabbing strategies" are theoretically feasible, but the essence is to use the existing ticketing rules of 12306 to operate. Whether the final ticket purchase can be successful or not still depends on the relationship between the supply and demand of tickets.

There are 5 times more new energy vehicles

The first battle in 2024 is to grab train tickets, and the next pressure is transferred to self-driving people and the highway network.

Of the 9 billion trips in this year's Spring Festival, excluding 1.8 billion traditional commercial transportation such as railways, civil aviation, and water transportation, the remaining 80% will be self-driving trips. Compared to 2019, the road will carry about 4.8 billion more vehicles, which will also be a record high.

It is estimated that the peak of traffic will occur on February 17, the eighth day of the first lunar month, that is, the peak of the return trip, and it is expected that 65.2 million vehicles will drive on the highway, which is 1.75 times the road network during the Spring Festival.

This year, the high-speed free policy for cars will remain unchanged, from 0:00 on Chinese New Year's Eve on February 9 to 24:00 on the eighth day of the first lunar month on February 17, a total of nine days.

During the Spring Festival holiday in previous years, highway passenger cars were free of charge

Fuel vehicle owners may be thinking about whether to get on the highway on Chinese New Year's Eve and the eighth day of the new year, and whether they can avoid traffic jams and get free on time after going up, but in addition, the "range anxiety" of new energy vehicle owners has begun to come to mind.

During the Spring Festival last year, the memory of "8 hours for oil cars and 15 hours for trams" and "half of the time on the road looking for or waiting for charging" was revived again.

In 2023, China's new energy vehicles won a big victory, with sales and ownership reaching 9.5 million and 20.41 million units, respectively, 7.9 times and 5.4 times that of 2019.

At the same time, according to the data released by the China Charging Alliance, in 2023, the increase in charging infrastructure will be 3.386 million units, and the incremental ratio of pile vehicles will be 1:2.8, and it is still catching up.

This year's Spring Festival road network will usher in not only the flow of people, but also new challenges from new energy vehicles.

Although the relevant departments claim that they have prepared to add mobile toilets and mobile electric piles in health and service areas, it remains to be tested whether they can effectively deal with them.

Is it cost-effective?

In comparison, this year's Spring Festival is outstanding in terms of air tickets and cost performance.

This year's 16,500 flights are basically the same as in 2019, and the average booking price of air tickets and hotels has decreased by about 1% and 2% respectively compared with last year, so this year's air tickets are relatively cost-effective.

For people who want to travel for the New Year or even leave the country for the New Year, if you stagger Chinese New Year's Eve and a few days before Chinese New Year's Eve, there are still many ultra-low-cost special destination routes to choose from, such as Beijing-Luoyang, Shanghai-Enshi, Shenzhen-Wuxi, Guangzhou-Taizhou, Hangzhou-Yantai, etc., and the economy class discount ticket is even less than 300 yuan.

Of course, popular destinations may not be able to be "averaged", and local cultural tourism and consumers will be involved in this Spring Festival war separately.

According to the data of major online travel platforms, the tourism market in the Chinese New Year this year will show a clear trend of "cross-border travel between the north and the south".

Harbin continues to lead the list of popular tourist destinations during the Spring Festival, taking Hangzhou as an example, the round-trip ticket price during the Spring Festival reaches more than 3,000 yuan.

January 25, Harbin Central Street

At the same time, the popularity of northern cities such as Mohe, Baishan, and Yanji has increased by more than 100% year-on-year. Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Northeast China attract a large number of southern tourists from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Guangdong, Hunan and other places.

Compared with "going north", warm cities such as Guangdong, Sanya, Xiamen, and Yunnan are still traditional popular destinations.

For example, Hangzhou Feihaikou, there is a special ticket of 470 yuan in December, and the ticket price will exceed 1,000 yuan by the end of January, and it will approach 2,000 yuan in February.

Data shows that in addition to the regular popular provincial capitals, Quanzhou, Zhuhai, Foshan, Beihai, Luoyang, Ningbo, Taizhou, Qingdao, Yantai, Yangzhou and other non-provincial capitals have more than 20 times the number of travel bookings year-on-year.

Some industry insiders said that if it is a popular tourist destination city, there are fewer flights, and the sooner you buy it, the cheaper it is. If there are more flights per day, such as flying to Beijing, Guangzhou and other business trunk lines, you can observe for a period of time.

Outbound travel is also a popular option this year, with bookings increasing by more than 15 times year-on-year in 2023 and approaching the level of 2019.

Popular destinations in the "12-hour flight circle" include Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

In particular, Singapore announced that it would officially exempt China from Chinese New Year's Eve, and as soon as the news came out, travel orders for the Spring Festival soared 14 times.

However, some netizens found that "now the average price of hotels in Singapore has soared to the point that I can't watch it." If you want to go, you should check the hotel price first. It's much more expensive to spend in Po than in Tokyo. ”

In addition, China Eastern Airlines has also resumed direct flights from Shanghai to Cairo, Fukuoka, Dubai, Brisbane and other routes, and the load factor of flights to the southern hemisphere has also reached a high level.

Civil aviation experts said: with the increase of capacity, the general decline in direct air fares will stimulate consumers to leave the country to a certain extent, forming a positive cycle.

Finally, I hope that you will pay attention to travel safety and keep warm while visiting relatives.

I wish you all a happy Chinese New Year and a safe journey in advance.

Resources:

1. "Spring Festival Travel Vane: The Trend of "North-South Cross-Travel" is Obvious, and "Intangible Cultural Heritage Celebrates the New Year" to Create an Atmosphere for the Spring Festival World Heritage Site

2. "Measured "Ticket Grabbing Artifact": I Want to Buy a Ticket from Shanghai to Guiyang, but I "Grabbed" a Ticket from Shanghai to Hangzhou

3. "Fliggy's 2024 Spring Festival Holiday Travel Vane" Changsha Hotel Bookings Increase by More Than 10 Times

4. "The Spring Festival in 2024 is about to begin, and 9 billion trips will give birth to the most prosperous Spring Festival tourism market"

The author of this article |Yixing| Editor-in-charge: He Mengfei

主编 |何梦飞| 图源 |VCG