Buying Train Tickets with English Names

[livinginchengdu]

Has anyone successfully purchased (i.e. not eventually been denied travel) train tickets on the 12306.cn website using a foreign passport as ID ?

If so, how did you format the English name ? I understand that it should be surname/family name first, but what about separators ?

For example: which one of these is valid for “Bill Clinton” ?

CLINTONBILL
CLINTON BILL
CLINTON.BILL
CLINTON/BILL (it’s NOT this one as the 12306 site doesn’t accept the ‘/’ character)

Alternatively, if anyone has an actual train ticket with an English name on it, then please let me know how the name was formatted.

Thanks for your help in advance.

[squirrel suit]

I’ve had all sorts of trouble with 12306.cn, and everytime it comes to buying train tickets, just go with ctrip. You do pay a fee, but for the convenience of being able to successfully buy train tickets without going to a station/window (and being told to “come back with a friend who speaks sichuanhua”), it’s worth it to me.

i believe some of the other flight/hotel websites sell train tickets too.

[livinginchengdu]

Thank you for your advice.

Did your train ticket have your surname and given names separated by whitespace, or were your names all compressed into one word ?

[squirrel suit]

I don’t remember…

I wouldn’t worry too much about the actual name, just that the passport # on the ticket matches the passport. It’s been within the past year that they started putting names on the tickets, previously it was just passport numbers.

When they try to type my full name in, it doesn’t fit. They try to fit all 3 names into 15 characters, so I get the 7 first name letter, the 6 middle name, and first 2 letters of the surname. There was a woman who only put in my first name, lower case but the ticket taker didn’t bat an eye.

Bottom line, just make sure the passport #s match up. If not, they might make you buy new tickets when you go to pick them up (not fun, or cheap)

[Levathian]

CLINTON BILL will work

[Levathian]

The passport number must be correct, the name is of less importance.

[Author]

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