South Korea: the booking address every guide recommends no longer works

The booking link most English-language guides give you returns an error. We checked it by hand on 9 September 2026: letskorail.com redirects to korail.com, and the deep address those guides recommend — the one that led straight to the ticket search — answers 404.

This is not an outage. It is a move, and it makes what is written almost everywhere out of date.

What we checked ourselves

What to do, concretely: start from the korail.com home page, not from a bookmark or a link copied out of an article written before September. If you had saved the old address for your trip, replace it now rather than at the station.

What we could not check

Korean business press reported, on 1 September 2026, that SRT had been merged into the KTX network — operations, ticketing and rolling stock.

If it has taken effect, it simplifies things considerably. Until now the two networks required separate bookings, on separate sites, for trains running the same line. Plenty of travellers have missed a train because they searched the wrong one of the two.

We found no English-language page from the operator confirming it. So we report it as press reporting, not as an established rule. At booking time, simply look at whether your route appears under a single brand: the answer will be in front of you, and it will be worth more than ours.

What has not changed

Seoul to Busan remains the reference trip: around 2 h 15 by KTX, a little over two hours on the fastest services, across roughly 400 kilometres. A second-class ticket commonly falls between 50,000 and 80,000 won.

Those figures circulate on specialist sites and we did not take them from an official fare table: treat them as an order of magnitude. The exact price appears when you book, and that is the one that counts.

Entry rules are stable until 31 December — but not identical for everyone

Two points worth repeating, because they run against what people assume about Asia.

K-ETA is not required. The temporary exemption runs to 31 December 2026 for several nationalities, and short stays are visa-free. Requesting a K-ETA voluntarily costs 10,000 won and is non-refundable — money spent for nothing while the exemption holds.

Your passport does not need six months’ validity beyond departure. This is an exception: Vietnam, Thailand and China do apply that rule. Do not generalise it — but do not invent a constraint that does not exist here either.

One thing this article cannot do is tell you your own rule. Canadians get 180 days visa-free where most others get 90. The South Korea page shows the rule for your passport, with the government source it came from and the month it was read.

What not to do

Book from a link found in an older article. That is precisely what no longer works. Type korail.com, or go through the South Korea page, whose links are re-checked.

Request a K-ETA “just in case.” It costs 10,000 won, it is not refunded, and it is not required.

Assume the six-month passport rule. It is false for South Korea, and assuming it would have you renew a passport for nothing.

Wait until the station to find out. Both changes on this page are a week old. Check your booking link before you leave, not on arrival.

In short

• Book on korail.com — the old address redirects, but the deep links in guides are dead.
• KTX/SRT merger announced on 1 September: press reporting, not officially confirmed.
• Seoul–Busan: about 2 h 15, 50,000 to 80,000 won, to be confirmed at booking.
• Entry: visa-free short stays, no K-ETA until 31 December 2026, no six-month passport rule — but the exact length depends on your passport.