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UlsanBoy
Joined: 19 Jun 2011
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 Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 7:45 am Post subject: Any Discounts For The Busan to Seoul KTX |
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Hi
Does anyone know if the Korail offer a discount for frequent weekend travellers? A return ticket to Seoul from Ulsan costs about 90k won, to expensive to go often. I asked at the station today but they had no idea what I was talking about. |
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Ramen
Joined: 15 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:02 am Post subject: Re: Any Discounts For The Busan to Seoul KTX |
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| UlsanBoy wrote: |
Hi
Does anyone know if the Korail offer a discount for frequent weekend travellers? A return ticket to Seoul from Ulsan costs about 90k won, to expensive to go often. I asked at the station today but they had no idea what I was talking about. |
she told you that there's no discount during high vacation season.  |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Take the regular train... |
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johnnyrook
Joined: 08 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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| lol, regular trains, who uses those? They take like three times as long and smell like pee. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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| johnnyrook wrote: |
| lol, regular trains, who uses those? They take like three times as long and smell like pee. |
A lot of people, they are pretty packed on weekends, and they are more frequent. Also, for those towns not along the KTX line, it's a godsend. |
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marsavalanche
Joined: 27 Aug 2010
Location: where pretty lies perish
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| Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 2:01 am Post subject: |
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| johnnyrook wrote: |
| lol, regular trains, who uses those? They take like three times as long and smell like pee. |
why are you even in korea with comments like this? |
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cheolsu
Joined: 16 Jan 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 3:19 am Post subject: |
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| The Mugunghwa train takes about twice as long (2 hours 45 minutes versus about 5 hours and 30 minutes) as the KTX and is about half the price. I don't think there are any discounts, but I'd loved to be proven wrong. |
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jonpurdy
Joined: 08 Jan 2009
Location: Ulsan
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| Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 4:22 am Post subject: |
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| The KTX to Suwon is 37,900 instead of 49,900. So round trip works out to under 80k. Just subway in from Suwon. |
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nick70100
Joined: 09 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 6:45 am Post subject: Re: Any Discounts For The Busan to Seoul KTX |
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| UlsanBoy wrote: |
Hi
Does anyone know if the Korail offer a discount for frequent weekend travellers? A return ticket to Seoul from Ulsan costs about 90k won, to expensive to go often. I asked at the station today but they had no idea what I was talking about. |
They have a loyalty program of sorts. It's called the "Korail membership card". It costs 10,000 won to join and get the card (one time fee). After that you get 5% of your ticket purchase back as points to use for future travel. For example, if you buy a ticket for 40,000 won you'll get 2,000 points and you can spend those points like cash to buy your next ticket. The membership program also gives you a 2% discount on tickets purchased through the Korail web site. (no discounts for buying a ticket in person at the station).
They also have some sort of benefits for super frequent travelers. If you earn more than 75,000 points in a year or something like that you become a "gold member" and get some extra perks. I don't really know how that stuff works though, I don't travel nearly often enough.
So the discounts aren't exactly huge, and you have to pay to join the program... but the 10,000 fee will pay for itself eventually, especially if you ride the trains often. |
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johnnyrook
Joined: 08 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 7:09 am Post subject: |
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| marsavalanche wrote: |
| johnnyrook wrote: |
| lol, regular trains, who uses those? They take like three times as long and smell like pee. |
why are you even in korea with comments like this? |
Why would me not wanting to spend 5 and half hours on a stinky Mugunghwa train since the luxury of KTX for the occasional trip is easily affordable on my average English teacher's salary lead you to such an illogical question? |
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qwerty
Joined: 10 Sep 2007
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litebear
Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: Holland
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| Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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Good deal if I'm reading that correctly. If you took 5 KTX trips from Seoul-Busan (for example) a year it'd have paid for itself. |
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nathanrutledge
Joined: 01 May 2008
Location: Marakesh
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| Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 4:44 am Post subject: |
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| Change stations and trains. Use Taewagang station on a Saemaeul to Dongdaegu (I assume a Saemaeul is good enough for your highness?), take a train to Suwon or Cheonan and switch to a Nooriro or subway, use a bus to get to a different station on the main line. Plenty of ways to bring the prices down IF you are willing to take a few extra stops/transfers. |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 6:02 am Post subject: |
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| johnnyrook wrote: |
| lol, regular trains, who uses those? They take like three times as long and smell like pee. |
No true...
The time difference between the KTX and Saemaeul trains on the Busan to Seoul line is an hour and change.
The train is confortable and clean. The seats tend to be a bit bigger than the KTX on some trains.
What you want to avoid is the mugowa that stops one million times between each city.
The cost difference between the KTX and Saemaeul is not that great but its there.
As far as deals...if you travel as a group you can get those four seats facing each other at a discount: you buy the 4 seats and you get one of them for free. We did that last year but not in peak vacation season.
I have no idea if Korail has a frequent user program, check out their website.
Also 90 000W is not expensive for a two way KTX train that crosses the country....its actually pretty affordable for what you get. |
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Greekfreak
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 6:08 am Post subject: |
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The KTX is a big accident waiting to happen--they've been having a lot of problems recently with smoke billowing into the cars, and complete shutdowns during the ride.
There used to be a 30+ day discount for early ticket bookings. Pretty substantial, something like 30% off a regular ticket. But going to Seoul, the extra 1.5 hour is not a big deal to me. I take the Saemaeul train. |
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