Scalpers scoop up lucky wedding dates
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When the lovers are ready, as well as their parents, relatives, friends and colleagues, the long-expected wedding party has to be set on an auspicious day. Which date do you choose? Well, it depends on how much more you are willing to pay.
As the year-end approaches, China's scalpers, known as huangniu ("yellow ox") are starting to sell hotel reservations on specific lucky dates, such as the Spring Festival and the New Year's Day, which they booked over a year ago.
These opportunists bet on auspicious wedding days as if they were the futures market, making at least 1,000 yuan ($147) in profit each time.
My friend Xiao Xu and his wife-to-be were at least as worried as happy by their upcoming wedding. Their parents asked the couple to hold their wedding party by the end of the year. But they were not able to book an appropriate hotel, since the schedules on all the auspicious dates had been reserved.
Helpless and desperate, Xiao Xu logged on a local forum. To his surprise, several posts offered to "transfer" their wedding party reservations at decent hotels and on perfect dates, but he needed to pay for an extra 2,000 yuan ($294) as a "transfer fee."
Wedding party scalpers aren't new. They've been around since at least 2008, when they bet on the "Olympic Year" and the traditionally lucky number 8, so that dates like August 8, 2008 was then considered "thousand-year's golden opportunity" for a lucky marriage.
Giving excuses like "readjustment of wedding dates," or "changing of family plans," some scalpers, disguised as couples themselves, secretly sell their hotel reservations online.
Some scalpers even boldly solicit online. They explicitly demand money for a transfer "favor" of 500 yuan on average for a reserve in a three-star hotel, 1,000 yuan for four-stars, and as much as 3,000 yuan for five-stars or outdoor occasions.
Scalpers claim that currently the reservation at four-star hotels are the most popular.
