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China’s millennials pay for Lunar New Year travels on installment plans
Apps let users spread the costs of train and plane tickets
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This article originally appeared on ABACUS
The holiday season can be a stressful time: Just think about all the money spent on travel and gifts. In the US, shoppers can use layaway to buy toys and electronics at big-box stores. In China, millennials are increasingly turning to installment plans to pay for air and train tickets, too.
It’s hard enough to snatch a ticket during Chinese New Year, with hundreds of millions of people all traveling at the same time. But even for those who manage to grab one, tickets don’t exactly come cheap. One-way travel from Beijing to the southern city of Guangzhou on a high-speed train costs around US$130. That’s roughly 15% of the average monthly pay for a college graduate.
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One delivery driver, aged under 30, told state broadcaster CCTV that he spent nearly 10,000 yuan (US$1,484) buying tickets for his whole family: His wife, parents, and three children. His solution? Spread the cost using Alipay.
This Lunar New Year, the Alibaba payment app let users split their train tickets into three interest-free installments.
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(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba.)
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