The nation’s transportation industry is offering special deals to attract some of the expected boost in domestic spending from the government’s distribution of consumer vouchers.
The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said yesterday that approximately 30 of its railway souvenirs could be purchased with consumer vouchers, including models of the tilting Taroko Express and EMU100 Express trains, figurines of TRA conductors and train crew and maps of the nation’s railways.
TRA passengers who pay with consumer vouchers can also receive special discounts on railway passes and meals.
Meanwhile, the TRA will start selling steel lunchboxes with lids embossed with an image of Jhutian (竹田) Station in Pingtung County, a station built during the Japanese colonial era.
The nation’s two largest airlines — China Airlines (CAL) and EVA Air — also said they were offering special deals to passengers paying with consumer vouchers.
CAL will offer two types of discounts: The first will allow passengers to buy economy-class round-trip tickets to 30 airports in Asia for just NT$3,600, the face value of the vouchers being issued starting this weekend.
The offer is valid from Sunday through Jan. 31 and is applicable for reservations made via the CAL Web site. The quota will be capped at 100 tickets per day.
Reservations can be made beginning at 12am on Sunday. Each customer can reserve a maximum of four tickets.
Between Sunday and September, passengers who book CAL tickets through travel agencies will receive a NT$5,000 discount when paying with the vouchers, the company said.
Starting next month, the NT$5,000 discount will also apply for ticket purchases with vouchers on the CAL Web site.
EVA Air is offering customers a NT$5,000 fare discount if they purchase one of the airline’s set travel packages.
Customers who pay for tickets to Hong Kong and Macau with vouchers will receive a NT$4,200 discount.
Both Uni Air and Mandarin Airlines are also offering discounts on domestic flights to passengers who pay with consumer vouchers starting next month.
TransAsia Airways, on the other hand, was not offering discounts, but said customers could pay with the vouchers.
The Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp also has not offered any deals for the vouchers.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
CASE COUNT: The deceased had advised law enforcement agencies regarding 60 fraud cases this year, leading to the confiscation of NT$9.3 billion in alleged illegal proceeds Prosecutors yesterday launched an investigation into the death of cryptocurrency expert Miffy Chen (陳梅慧), who died in a car crash on Wednesday under what some consider to be suspicious circumstances following her work with law enforcement to track down NT$9.3 billion (US$286.97 million) in alleged illegal proceeds. Prosecutor-General Hsing Tai-chao (邢泰釗) tasked the Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office with investigating the incident following requests from the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) and other agencies with which she worked to crack several prominent cases involving financial fraud and money laundering. Chen was killed in a six-car pileup near Hsinchu in the northbound lanes of Sun
RSS