Transport systems in China face extreme capacity shortages during the Spring Festival travel season. This study therefore explores traveler’s decision making behavior when booking tickets during this season for a specific origin destination relation. Data are obtained from a mixed RP/SP survey that reflects the ticketing policy in China. Loop questions are programmed inside the questionnaire to investigate changes in behavior after people experienced failure to obtain their preferred ticket. Hybrid discrete choice models are built based on the survey data to reflect the first two levels of an individual’s choice sequence. The first level reflects respondents’ preferred choice. For the second level, the best alternative choice, a generalized choice set is introduced that is able to simplify the complex alternatives. Two simulations are conducted based on the estimation results which are evaluated based on the number of tickets that could be obtained by the generated population. The simulation results suggest that under fixed total railway capacity, the over-expansion of high-speed rail can have an overall negative impact, especially for the low-income group and we show the possibility of creating more capacity for the low-income group by staggered ticket sales. We suggest the methodology introduced in this study can support the discussion regarding socially optimal ticketing policies under severe capacity shortages.