Originally Posted by
CXBA
apologies in advance if my question looks petty, but previous replies have made quite clear that traveling in periods just before CNY is quite difficult, if only for the extreme stress exerted to China transportation systems by hundreds of millions of people returning to their hometowns and families once per year. If your trip is essential one, and not a family emergency, a sensible planning should have adjusted it to avoid traveling, or at best having a rock-solid reservation, for the week before the CNY date (the 23rd. of January this year). Having said that if the travel distance is within 2-3 hours, getting by car is your best bet at the moment. I would not worry about the money in the sense that the driver, if available for such a trip, will tell you the fare and it will already be a more substantial amount than normally asked, it's up to you to agree his demand.
It's probably not any of our place to judge purpose of trip or timing. Since OP said it was not a vacation, and since business is essentially not being conducted on this weekend, I concluded that this is a poster that is heading out to Jinan on a New Year's Friends and Family visit...possibly an overseas or returning Chinese? The comment about "more luggage than usual" sort of helped my conclusion along....bringing gifts and stuff is normal this time of year both to and within China. If this is the case, the OP would be well aware of the travel issues at this time, yet has no real choice about travel period. 1.4 billion people are in the same boat. OP is looking for info and ideas, and we are providing that to best of our knowledge. There very well may be no ideal solution for this OP's situation that is also cost-effective.
And road travel time from Qingdao to Jinan would be more like 4 hours, no way is it just 2 or 3 hours. And in heavy holiday traffic, likely that could get up to 5 or 6 hours even on the expressway. However, for a guaranteed car and driver with pickup and drop points for me and all my luggage, I'd certainly be willing to consider something like RMB 1000-1200. This is a perfect situation where having a Chinese drivers license and being able to rent a car for self-drive could come in really, really useful. But likely that's not an option here. Although Ada, if you have any friends with a local license and you are willing to fund the car rental (and a car is available to prearrange for rent), maybe working a deal for them to do the driving while you do the riding along and the paying could be an option.