Looking for booking e-tickets with the IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation Limited) and having trouble getting through? Worry not. Here, I’ll give you some tips and tricks about how to book railway tickets with the IRCTC easy and faster. Read on…
Booking tickets via the IRCTC website can be very tough most of the times. Thanks to their poorly designed website and mega rush. Most of the times, the website remains busy and finding your train to book your tickets can be very hard. But knowing couple of tips and tricks can go a long way.
Step 1 – How to register on the IRCTC website
The first and foremost step to buying etickets with IRCTC is to register yourself on the website. It is Free and only needs a valid email address. You should have one ready from Gmail or Yahoo or any of the free email providers. Once you have your e-mail address ready (example, yourname@gmail.com), go to the registration page on the IRCTC site here.
Here. you will find a long form that will ask for all your details. You will need to provide as many details as possible on this form. Worry not, this is only a one-time form and you won’t need to fill it every time you need to book a ticket. The form asks for information like name, email, address etc. Give in accurate details.
You will get a confirmation email on your email id and your mobile phone number once you successfully finish registration.
Step 2 – Planning your travel – Booking ticket
Now that you have your email address and password, go to the website homepage again here and login. Use the same e-mail id and password.
Once you login, you will get a “Plan my travel” link on the menu bar, click on it. You will see a screen like this below.
From this screen, choose your From and To station. From station is the railway station you are starting your journey with and To station is the railway station you are going to. For example, if you traveling from Mumbai to Delhi, then your “From Station” will be “Mumbai” and “To Station” Delhi.
Step 3 – Finding your Train
At this point, you have only selected the travel destinations and date, now is the time to pick the train you want to travel. For this, click on “Submit” button. Now the system will show you which are the available trains between your starting station and destination. You will see a screen like below.
– To find a list of trains to your destination, click on “Submit” button.
– Now, you will see a list of Trains with their numbers and available routes (like picture above).
– Click on the train name under the “List of Trains” option to see the route and timings for that train.
– To get the price and fare of each train, click on the class available (1A, 2A, SL etc).
– To select the train for your travel, click on the type of class available in the selected train.
– Train details with availability will also be shown when you click on the train name and number.
– To book tickets, click on “Book Now” button under availability option.
– If you wish to select other train, click on “RESET” button and a new list will come.
Now, the Ticket reservation page will appear. Ensure that the train name and station names displayed on top of the page are the ones you selected and have not changed.
Now, enter the names of the passengers, age, sex and berth preference for each person. The maximum length of names should be restricted to 15 characters. If the Passenger is a senior citizen (60 years and above for male and 58 years and above for female) and wants to avail Senior Citizens’ concession (40% of Base fare for male and 50% of base fare for female), click the box provided. Senior citizens are requested to carry some proof of age in original during their journey.
Make sure that you give you mobile phone number so that you get notifications and updates on changes.
Now, after you confirm the details, the ticket details, availability of tickets at the booking time, including the service charge, appear on the screen. (see image below). You will also be provided payment options. Select the desired payment mode and bank from the drop down list seen on the screen.
Final confirmation and printing out tickets – Once the payment confirmation has gone through, you will get a confirmation of your ticket. At this point you cannot make any changes to the reservation. The confirmation ticket can be printed via a printer or emailed to your email address. Here is a sample of the ticket confirmation.
eTicket ready to be printed out. Click on the “Print” button to print it out.
– Ensure that on the day of the travel, you carry your ticket copy along with ID card and other details. (For seniors, ID showing age proof is required. Same is the case for children.)
If you have any doubts, let me know in comments. Thank you!
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