Tips for winning 'click wars'

Illustration by Bae So-young

Winning ‘click wars': tips for class registration and ticket buying

By Park Ji-won, Baek Byung-yeul, Nam Hyun-woo

People engage in ‘click wars' in various situations such as in registering for college classes and buying train, concert or baseball tickets. Here are some true stories and tips that may help you win in your next click war.

Click war 1: signing up for courses

On Aug. 8, Jin Woo-hyoung, a 22-year-old collegian, gathered four of his friends, who have "nimble fingers" from playing computer games, at an Internet cafe. Their mission was to enlist Jin in courses he wanted to take in the upcoming fall semester at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS).

To this end, Jin "rented" four accounts of students on a leave of absence. Jin's friends would use those accounts to enlist Jin in the courses.

The school's course registration administrator opens the server and allows students to access the registration system at 10 a.m. sharp. To be sure they're ready as soon as the server opens, Jin and friends used UTCK, a computer program that provides the Korean standard time and is aligned by a cesium atomic clock.

Two minutes from 10 a.m., the Internet cafe, packed with other HUFS students, was dead silent. As soon as UTCK struck 10 a.m., everyone attempted to sign in, causing the online traffic to surge and the page turn to slow down. Students who successfully signed up for courses they wanted hurrahed, while those who were not able to enlist in their preferred courses sighed.

Jin and his friends attempted to sign in a total of 10 times before they actually got in. Eventually, Jin managed to sign up for all of his preferred courses.

"I was prepared for a tough click war. In previous years, I experienced many failures and error messages when I attempted to sign up for courses online. I knew that the same thing will happen this year, so I prepared with my friends," Jin said.

Virtually every student in Korea faces this competitive online registration scenario every semester. Those who failed to enlist in their preferred classes "buy" courses from students who were able to enlist in extra classes.

"Course trading has become prevalent in universities' online communities after the registration season. Popular courses are traded at some 50,000 won ($45)," said one of Jin's friends, surnamed Lee.

"Some mandatory classes required for graduation are popular. Students on a leave of absence enlist for such courses and sell them to other students," Jin said.

College students complain that schools should improve their server hardware to allow simultaneous access to a significant number of students without overloading servers.

"If a school's server can successfully accommodate all students attempting to sign in, such side effects will not happen. Rather than banning the tactics students use to enlist in classes, the university should invest more to develop a better online registration system," Jin said.

Click war 2: booking train tickets for Chuseok holiday

Chuseok, one of the nation's largest traditional holidays, is another cause of click wars, as a significant number of people book Korea Train Express (KTX) tickets in order to visit their parents in rural areas. Chuseok, the Korean version of Thanksgiving in the West, falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar calendar month. This year, it falls on Sept. 19.

Jang Hee-won, a 31-year-old office worker in Seoul, worries about booking this year's Chuseok train tickets. She plans to spend time with her parents in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province from Aug. 27 to 30.

"Last year was terrible," said Jang.

"I attempted more than 100 times to book seats online for the train last year, but the Korail website malfunctioned, and all I could see was an error message apologizing for the inconvenience."

The KTX, a bullet train, was launched in 2004 and has since served as a major transportation means during Korea's busiest travel season. According to Korail, the state-run railway operator, an average of 200,000 travelers used the bullet train each day during the Chuseok holiday season last year.

The online reservation system of Korail has millions of hits a day in the run-up to the Chuseok holiday.

As the online system struggles with the large amount of people attempting to book tickets, it shows error messages that leave many other travelers frustrated.

On July 23, the railway operator announced it upgraded the online reservation system by introducing web accelerators and net panels to control the web traffic of the reservation system and reduce connection delay.

However, travelers like Jang who have failed to book train tickets in the past years remain doubtful of the system upgrade and plan to resort to their own tactics.
"I am prepared for this year's click war. No matter what will happen, I will get the tickets," said Jang.

She said three of her colleagues whose parents live in Seoul will help her get the tickets.

Click war 3: Getting concert tickets

Fans want to get the best seats they could at their favorite artists' concerts. However, getting seats with the best views or which are closest to the stage are difficult to get. Concert tickets for very popular artists often become sold out after only one minute.

"I took a day off from work to buy a ticket for my favorite singer's concert. Reservation starts on weekdays and usually takes two minutes to sell all the tickets. I need to go to an Internet cafe in order to concentrate on buying the concert ticket online," a 30-year-old K-pop fan said.

There are many online resources that promise to help people get the best concert seats, but very few of the tips are effective, driving some people to take extreme measures. Here are some tips to help you book concert tickets.

1. Make sure you have the right time. Go to http://time.navyism.com/?host= and enter the address of the concert reservation page. The website will show you the right time for when reservation opens.

2. Write down your personal and payment information such as ID number, address and credit card number beforehand. By doing so, you can just copy and paste the information onto the online reservation form, saving you a significant amount of time.

Click war 4: avoiding ticket scalpers

Baseball season is another cause of a click war. Baseball fans eager to watch their favorite teams at the ballpark buy their tickets at the stadium or online, but many fail and turn to buying tickets from scalpers.

Last weekend, Choi Jung-won, 32, visited Jamsil Baseball Stadium with her husband to watch a game, but she couldn't get tickets because they were already sold out. While she was standing at the ticket counter, stamping her feet, a middle-aged man approached her and whispered, "Do you need tickets?"

"I have tickets for you two, but they cost way too much. But you know, tickets are all sold out. If you still want to watch the game, buy tickets from me," the man said.

The couple really wanted to watch the game and paid 40,000 won for two tickets that originally cost 8,000 won each.

"I had no choice but to buy them because we really wanted to attend the game. It was a match between two Seoul teams, LG Twins and Doosan Bears," Choi said.

Ticket scalping is illegal in Korea. The police levy fines of up to 160,000 won on scalpers who are caught. Since last April, when the baseball season started, 150 officers roam the ballpark to crack down on scalpers. According to the police, they caught 228 scalpers last year.

Despite these measures, however, ticket scalping continues, both offline and online. Online scalpers usually evade police crackdowns, but you can help the police by reporting suspected ticket scalping. Online ticket scalping is easy to detect because the tickets are sold at a higher price than at many registered sellers such as online malls.