Train: 4 berth sleeper, 2 passengers....?
 

Hi,

My trip to China (approximate details) is going to include a Huaihua-Guilin train, for 12 hours.

Now I'd prefer to travel by plane or similar to avoid 12 hours on a train and save time, however as far as I can work out that isn't feasible. As such the
train is fine really, and a whole day gives me a good chance to read and relax. There will be two of us, the prices are so cheap that ideally I'd prefer to get a whole 4 berth sleeper. Based on my last experience of booking (via chinahighlights.net) I am guessing that if I am willing to pay the price, and use some fake details (i.e. my parents or similar as they will want a passport scan) for the other tickets, and get the tickets delivered to my hotel (avoiding pickup problems) I can achieve, for perhaps $50 more, a 4 person sleeper for just the two of us.

Apart from the "decadent" wastage am I going to have any problems with this, from what I can see there are two potential problems (Our mandarin is very basic)
1 - The tickets are booked sequentially so I may get "split" seats in different berths and explaining a swap for non-existent persons is going to be problematic
2 - Some confusion on the train and reselling of the seats

Any thoughts? Anyone done this before?

It's been done before but using two additional real passports (not scans) of family members not traveling, to purchase and pick up the tickets. You might succeed with using two additional scans and you might not. Scenario 1 above is very possible. Scenario 2 is possible if the conductor calls your bluff and demands to see 4 real passports to check against the tickets (and/or wants to see 2 more real furriners show up!).

IMO, it's your gamble but if you're not willing to suck it up and share with two other people in case you fail, you shouldn't be taking this form of transport, at least not for this long. There's an outside chance that on a daytime train, the other sleepers won't even be sold or won't be sold for the entire journey even if you don't try to buy them, especially in soft sleeper. If you only buy two sleepers, tell the agent you want lower berths in one compartment. They can do this if they wait for the 18-day advance sales period and request from a ticketing office rather than book online at the 20-day advance period (where berths are assigned sequentially and you will almost certainly get a lower + upper.)

While I don't know the context of your travel immediately before and after this segment, I'm not convinced that this long train ride is your only (or best) option. Are you visiting Fenghuang or just wanting to get from Zhangjiajie/Wulingyuan to Guilin as quickly as possible? Are you going to the Longji Rice Terraces or omitting?

There is no chance that they will resell the tickets if you have paid for the tickets and they have been issued. It is clearly stated in the regulation.
I once bought tickets from Lanzhou but go on in Jiayuguan 9 hours after the train departed from Lanzhou and our compartment was locked and waiting for us.

A passenger caught out with having purchased extra tickets under false pretenses would void the requirement that the extra berths be held and not resold. Whether the conductor would actually resell a bogusly-procured berth is another issue. And of course, he'd have to find out first.

So OP, if you try this and get control of all berths in a compartment, it's probably wisest to just show your two real tickets and ID's when they come to the compartment and ask for, and play dumb about the other two berths, especially if the family names of the other two don't match your own. Train staff might just assume they are getting on further down the line, per JPDM's example.

Thanks for the advice all helps clarify my thoughts and cost/reward points (and when getting tickets delivered to the hotel there is no pickup issue - just a matter of the conductor to deal with!), to pick up on the point below:

I'd be really keen if you could suggest a good alternative, from my reading I hadn't really seen any suitable alternatives. The before/after to this trip is:

• Three Gorges river cruise
• Wuhan overnight (twice) to see the area/experience a more local city
• Wuhan-Changsa G train VIP class, bus to Zhangjiajie
• Couple of days in Zhangjiajie
• Zhangjiajie->Fenghuang->Huaihua (one day)
• This trip
• Guilin for a couple of days (would probably see the terraces then I presumed, worst case on a day trip)
• Guilin - lijiang (flight?)
• Lijiang for a couple of days
• Flight back to Chengdu and home the next day

So then it's a matter of getting to Guilin: Happy to have any alternatives suggested - I would like to see Zhangjiajie and Guilin, and there didn't seem to be much in the middle to try and see (and flights didn't really seem to work in this area as an alternative) - any suitable breaks/detours would be appreciated

How will you deal with seat poachers?

I have had cabin mates that suddenly disappear during ticket check, or they pay for a "Bu Piao" and then your tickets just cost you double and got nothing for it.

By locking the door?

I went back and re-read your original thread, and while you changed out Kunming for Lijiang, you kept Wuhan in. I can only presume there is some method to your madness because it will be a trip with lots of transport bones and much less meat hanging on them. While the quoted post above doesn't lay out timing so I don't know the particulars you have been working with, I'll do my version which IMO puts about as much sightseeing time as you can get without resorting to overnight trains which seemed pretty clear in your linked thread, was not your schtick. I also assume you are still working with the original 18 nights in China time limitation.

Days 1-5: Assumed to be your first day in Chengdu, a day for getting from Chengdu to Chongqing and filler time there, 3 days of Yangtze Cruise.
Day 6: Assumed cruise end/early afternoon arrival in Yichang. Get afternoon fast train to Wuhan. Overnight there.
Day 7: Wuhan all day and Overnight again.
Day 8: Wuhan morning--do the Museum or something on the Wuhan (high speed) station side of the river. Bullet train Wuhan-Changsha South. I'd suggest the G1009 (13:42-15:21) or the G1011 (14:39-16:08), both of which have VIP seats and both which get you into Changsha with enough time for a quick early dinner, then FLY CZ3984 CSX-DYG (Zhangjiajie) 19:10-20:00. With all due respect, you don't come across as the bus type and 5 hours of it just wastes time and tires you out. Overnight ZJJ and I suggest in your situation staying in the city not out at Wulingyuan.
Day 9: Wulingyuan all day, overnight ZJJ again
Day 10: Tianmen Mountain as soon as it opens, 08:00-noon. Afternoon train ZJJ-Jishou, suggest K1373 14:00-16:19, road transfer to Fenghuang arriving about 17:15-ish. Overnight FH.
Day 11: Fenghuang. Early morning is the best and most peaceful time to explore FH, before the bus crowd daytrippers flood in. Explore the morning and have early lunch, then get car transfer to Tongren-Fenghuang airport (TEN) which is about 45 minutes away, in Guizhou province. Fly Tianjin Airlines GS7504 14:00-14:30 TEN-KWE (Guiyang) then GS6465 17:10-18:00 KWE-KWL. Dinner and overnight Guilin.
Days 12-13: Guilin/Yangshuo.
Day 14: flight to Lijiang (nonstop if avail or via KMG)
Days 15-16: Lijiang
Day 17: flight LJG-CTU (morning or evening your preference)
Day 18: Chengdu

Three additional thoughts:
1) The TEN-KWE and KWE-KWL flights aren't loaded into the usual search engines past late March, yet they should be running in April and beyond. Normally they are dailies. You might give ctrip or elong a call on the English-speaking line and see if they can confirm the schedule for your dates, even if they aren't showing flights or discount pricing online yet. For comparison purposes, in late March the TEN-KWE shortie is looking like under RMB 400 all-in and the KWE-KWL at RMB 250 a/i. So compared to buying train soft sleepers (x2) and spending a lot more travel time on the train, the flights might work to your advantage and certainly less arduous.

2) Unless you decide to eliminate either the Wuhan-Changsha two days OR the Lijiang days and respread them over what's left, you simply don't have time to see the Longji Rice Terraces which are north of Guilin. This is a value judgment you'll have to make.

3) If you do decide to defer Wuhan OR Lijiang to a future trip, thus freeing up at least one day which could be put to the Terraces, then I'd take the train. The best choice would be the train K653 you had originally planned to take from Huaihua, except get off earlier at Sanjiangxiang mid-morning. Then about 3.5 hours drive to Ping'an or Dazhai Terrace for rest of afternoon and overnight. Next afternoon getting to Guilin/Yangshuo by road.

Hi jiejie - thanks for all the details, maybe I do need to remove Wuhan (I was looking at the Yichang-Zhangjiajie train after your previous post). The original reason for that stop was a few high speed trains (in preference to buses/K trains) and that it has a Marriott branded hotel so I can get a couple of good nights rest/relaxation/pampering after the cruise for relatively little money due to my corporate discount, which tends to make Marriotts the cheapest hotels on my trips (though I realise the cruise won't be that taxing!). Am going to ponder your suggestions for a few days before I book anything more, but thanks a lot for taking the time with such a detailed post.

Method of getting from Yichang to Zhangjiajie might depend on when your cruise ship is scheduled to dock at Yichang. If early enough to be able to catch the afternoon 13:25 train, that's the easiest. The night train scheduling is awful and allows for no real rest. Another option would be that afternoon, get from Yichang to Jingzhou (very historic walled city) by expressway and staying there the night, then continuing on the next morning by road to ZJJ (will take a few hours). Afternoon of that travel day still available for useful sightseeing at ZJJ/Tianmen mountain, with Wulingyuan afterwards. This picks up 2 days.

To close this out for prosperity - after your many, very sensible, suggestions jiejie I took on board your advice and reduced the number of destinations a bit more, our final itinerary removed Lijiang, giving us enough time to stay at Dazhai Terrace. The main reason is a desire to avoid an indirect flight Tenzen to Guilin, and partially as the flight times changed meaning we'd have needed to get a plane at 11am.

As such the the trip has ended up being less hectic and has been booked as:

• 2 nights Chengdu | HS train to Chongqing
• 1 night Chongqing
• 3 nights Yangtze river cruise ship | HS train from Yichang -Wuhan
• 2 nights Wuhan | HS train from Wuhan-Changsha, Changsa - Zhangjiajie flight
• 2 nights Zhangjiajie | Train Zhangjiajie to Jishou, then either taxi or bus
• 1 night Fenghuang | presume a taxi/bus to Huaihua (not booked)
• 1 night in Huaihua (before the train) | Train Huaihua to Sanjiangxiang, then either taxi or bus
• 1 night Dazhai Terrace| either taxi or bus to Guilin
• 1 night Guilin | river cruise to Yangshuo
• 1 night Yangshuo | Taxi to airport from Yangshuo, flight Guilin - Yangshuo
• 2 nights Chengdu

Thanks for all your advice and time, just means I need to return to do Kunming in a few years time, maybe when the HS trains open up to it :)