Booking indian railways tickets from UK

driver99

Hi, just joined this forum and wanted to say what an AMAZING and invaluable resource it is for all things India!! Planning my first trip to India without the parents(!) and i think i would be absolutely lost without the wealth of info i have found here!

had a quick question regarding booking the e-tickets for the trains from the IRCTC site - when paying by a UK issued VISA debit card (Barclays), are there any charges imposed by the UK bank?

i apologise in advance if this has been covered elsewhere, though i've scanned through the forums for the past couple of hours and haven't found this addressed...thank you!!

Mickey S

It depends upon the bank but, generally, yes.

Banks will usually charge you a foreign transaction fee and will also weight the exchange rate in their favour - so you end up paying twice.

The only British bank I know of that does not do this is Nationwide. It's worthwhile opening an account with them just to get free foreign currency purchases and cash withdrawals when travelling overseas.

driver99

thanks for your quick reply to my post! yes definitly sounds worth it to open an account with nationwide..