Originally Posted by
moondog
What are the functional advantages of the Chinese version? I have both (Chinese on one phone and English on another), and was unaware they were different (or any more different than 微信 v WeChat). And, I've never seen any discounts on the Chinese version that would work for me or 90% of my Chinese friends (I don't know many party members
).
I'm also curious why you prefer 12306 over ctrip. I usually use the former to avoid paying a (tiny) booking fee, but if I wasn't already registered or didn't take trains often, I wouldn't bother with 12306 because I prefer ctrip's UI and customer service.
I saw on Reddit that the English version wouldn’t complete passport verification, but that seems to have been resolved. The Chinese version does appear to have more fields in the settings, but regardless, the phone number fields seem limited to those specific country / area codes, no matter which language you select.
As for Trip.com, I downloaded that, as well, and completed passport verification in the train section. I’ll likely try both to compare - if 12306 ends up actually working, I can feel good about the marginal savings.