Buying train ticket at PVG?
 

Hello fellow FTers,

We'll be flying into PVG and we will be heading towards Xuzhou right after we landed.

From what I have learned from FT, I reckon the best way to go to the train station is by bus (we have got a lot of luggage - you know bringing stuffs for Chinese friend + presents for all the friends and their families).

Is it possible to buy train ticket at PVG? I'd like to buy it after getting to land side since we have a better idea when we will be at Hongqiao.

Any suggestions? Also do they take foreign credit cards?

I'm Chinese so language is not a problem for me.

TIA!

Unfortunately you cannot buy train tickets at PVG.

However with plenty (more than 20) of G trains from Hongqiao to Xuzhou, your chance of getting tickets on the spot should be ok, unless you entounter peak travel during Chinese holidays. I have done that from various stations in Jiangsu to Xuzhou and vice versa and often get tickets departing within an hour.

If, however, the Shanghai - Xuzhou tickets are sold out on the G trains, what I would do is to buy a Shanghai - Nanjing ticket on a train that also stops at Xuzhou (not all the Jinghu line 京沪线 G trains do), board the train and then buy the Nanjing - Xuzhou portion from the train crew/attendant/hostess 乘务员 (This is known as 补票). The downside of course is that I probably don't have a seat for 1hr15mins. But personally I can live with that.

Note the order of stations are Shagnhai - Nanjing - Xuzhou - Beijing on the Jinghu line 京沪线.
I think right now the most sought-after present in China would be iPhone 6;)

Yes there is a ticket counter at Pudong. It is located between the 2 terminals near the Maglev. Tons of trains.

Seats on some Shanghai - Xuzhou trains sell out almost a week in advance, so please book and pay well ahead if you have a schedule to keep.

You can book the tickets online and use your passport numbers or can ask a friend in China do that for you and get the booking number, then all you need to do is collect the ticket from the windows.

My suggestion, take a taxi-van to hongqiao and go to the window to get the tickets.

Train around 3.5 - 4 hours after your flight landing time should be comfortable.

IMO, buying tickets at PVG is a better plan than online booking in this case because it's difficult to predict exactly when you'll get out of the terminal (e.g. timeliness of inbound flight plus PRC entry formalities are not constant).

Furthermore, the ticket window at PVG happens to be extremely close to the bus stop between the terminals. I wouldn't bother with any sort of van taxi unless my party was big enough to fill it up because the bus is a straight shot, and leaves every 10-15 minutes.

I often do something similar. Fly into Pudong then I take the rain in Hongqiao to Nanjing.
I usually book a train at a comfortable time and if I arrive early in Hongqiao then I go to the counter and exchange for an earlier train. This way I am sure of having something.
Last time it was fairly quick. I was out of the airport in 45 minutes. I jumped on the Maglev then switched to the subway. All in less than 2 hours. Travel time via Maglev-subway is quite predictable. Getting through immigration can take an additional 15 minutes if things are bad. The wild card is time of arrival of your flight.

The bus is a bit faster; the travel time isn't quite as predictable as Maglev/subway (which is more or less exact), but is pretty solid because traffic is almost never an issue on the outer ring. Apart from speed, the strongest arguments in favor of the bus are: 1) no need to transfer; 2) luggage goes underneath; 3) you get a seat; and 4) avoidance of Line 2.

Can anyone confirm that the ticket booth at PVG is one of those off-station ones where you can buy tickets but can't pick them up pre-paid online ones?

I hadn't heard of the prohibition against picking up pre-ordered tickets at off-station booking offices until I saw this thread*, and I'm still somewhat dubious about this claim (official policies that don't make sense often get rolled back in short order) until someone comes forward and states that they tried (present passport and train number) and failed. BUT, if the policy in question is in force, it surely applies to the booking office at PVG (because there isn't a train station at PVG).

ETA: *I meant to say this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...n-station.html

+1

Although I'd probably take the bus further out, at least to Suzhou or Wuxi but why not even to Nanjing?

Should be much easier to get train tickets once you are out of the Shanghai/Kunshan/Suzhou megacity commuter area (roughly 35 million inhabitants)

The #1 bus only goes to Hongqiao. There isn't a long distance bus station at PVG. You could take a taxi to Kunshan or further, but that strikes me as a waste of $75.

Right, at the airport you can buy tickets but you cannot pick up tickets that were purchased online. Been there and tried it. Same at the Beijing airport. It might be possible once you 12306.com account has been "verified" but nobody knows how to do this.
Part of the new rules introduced March 1 this year.

By the end of 2015 the high speed rail should be finished PVG to Hongqiao.
15 minutes instead of 2 hours?

Miss those 8.2RMB/USD days. 40 bucks PVG to Kunshan KTVs: