A train ticket departing on September 30 costs more than one departing on September 25. According to a report by China News via Jingwei on September 18, in a screenshot shared by a netizen, for Train D988 from Chongqing North to Nanjing South, the fares for the two departure dates start at 446 yuan and 520 yuan, respectively. The 74-yuan difference in the “starting fare” has led many to ask the same question: with the National Day holiday approaching, has the railway raised ticket prices across the board?

The reporter contacted multiple 12306 customer service representatives as a passenger and received the explanation that different dates may have different discounted offers, and passenger demand during holidays can also affect ticket prices; the specific price is subject to what is shown on the official 12306 page. To understand this, you first need to separate the “payment amount you see” from the “published ticket fare.”

【What can the screenshot show】

The two screenshots provided by网友 are the starting point of this discussion, but they are not a complete pricing record. The report uses “from 446 yuan” and “from 520 yuan,” where “from” indicates the lowest starting price shown on the page. With only these two numbers, it’s not possible to confirm whether the two queries correspond to the exact same class of seat, available tickets, and query time point. The reporter included the screenshots from网友 and did not independently perform real-time price checks on the same seat class for D988 over these two days.

Therefore, the safest way to put it is: the screenshots show that the starting prices differ between the two dates, and 12306 customer service explained the mechanism by which date-based discounts may change. You cannot simply rewrite the screenshots as “all National Day tickets increased by 74 yuan,” nor can you do the opposite by denying that the payment amounts passengers saw might indeed be higher. The amount a traveler actually has to pay on the ticket-purchase page is, by nature, a different layer from the official long-term published baseline figures.

【“published fares” and “implemented fares” are not the same thing】

A fare announcement for the Shanghai–Kunming high-speed rail Hangzhou–Changsha segment that was previously published by the 12306 official website explicitly places both in the same table: one side is the published fare, and the other side is the implemented fare with different discounts for different train services. The announcement also states that the implemented fare will take into account factors such as season, date, time period, seat class, etc., and discounts will fluctuate up or down; the specific price must be checked on 12306 when purchasing tickets. Another official announcement regarding the Qingdao–Yancheng intercity rail also states that the specific implemented fares are subject to what is displayed on the ticket-selling website at the time of sale.

Here is a very straightforward formula: if the published fare for a certain train service and a certain seat class remains unchanged, and the weekday discount is larger while the pre-holiday discount is smaller, then the amount passengers ultimately pay will be different. When the discount narrows, the payment amount goes up; this is not the same as “railways uniformly raise published fares across all routes.” The customer service statement of “this is not a fare increase” points precisely to the second understanding; when passengers say “it’s more expensive on that day,” they may be referring to the implemented price they saw. Since the two statements refer to different fare layers, it’s easy for people to talk past each other in the discussion.

It’s worth noting that the announcements for the Hangzhou–Changsha segment and the Qingdao–Yancheng intercity rail only serve as official examples explaining how flexible pricing works; they are not a pricing document for D988 in the Chongqing North to Nanjing South segment. You cannot directly apply the lower bounds of discounts, their applicable scope, or the rules for a certain segment from those announcements to the train service shown in网友’s screenshots. The specific ticket price for D988 is still determined by what is displayed on the 12306 ticket-selling page for the corresponding departure date and seat class.

【Why you can’t wait for some moment that is “sure to be cheaper”】

This time, the reporter also asked customer service: when is it more cost-effective to buy? Customer service said they can’t determine how strong the discounts will be in any particular time period; during the ticket-issuing period there generally won’t be major changes, but special circumstances can’t be ruled out. This means that just because the pre-holiday price is high, you can’t conclude that it will definitely drop before departure without reliable evidence. Ticket prices and available seat inventory may also change with the time you query; waiting itself can change which train services and seat classes you can actually buy.

For people planning their trip, what’s more useful is to first clarify your comparison targets. On the 12306 page, align the origin and destination, the specific train service, the seat class, and the departure date one by one, then check the current implemented prices you can purchase. If you can adjust your travel date, compare adjacent dates; if you can’t adjust the date, then compare different train services, departure time slots, and the total journey on the same date. What you’ll see is a real purchase-ready option, not just the “starting price” shown in social media screenshots.

If the same train costs more when you switch the day, passengers naturally care. The response from 12306 customer service explained a possible pricing mechanism, but it did not provide a complete price table for D988 for each seat class across those two days. The conclusion supported by the existing materials is: the starting prices shown on some train tickets’ pages before the National Day holiday differ, and changes in discounts are the explanation provided by customer service; from this, you cannot conclude that China’s high-speed rail uniformly raised fares nationwide. The numbers that truly matter to your travel decision are still the ticket, that departure date, and that seat class displayed on 12306 at the time of purchase.

For research and study only; this does not constitute investment advice.