Nuts & Bolts of online registration for railway ticket booking.

I found the credit card system to be very fickle. It did not allow me to use the same credit card to book 2 different tickets. weird.....

From todays rail budget........

"From today the facility of i-ticket and e-ticket has been made available on all mail and express trains."

in another thread " internet bookings not available for foreign tourist category"
is this still the case,
does it really matter if you get a confirmation anyway.?

thx for all the great help!

It matters that your ticket gets confirmed before or even on the day of travel, but not at teh time of booking.

Foreign tourists can book tickets on the internet using the "general quota" but AFAIK can not book tickets on the "foreign tourist quota" on the internet.

Doesn't the irctc.co.in website simply accept plain credit cards? I don't see that option in "payment gateways"

On the more popular routes such as Delhi-Varanasi, how far in advance do the trains in one's preferred class (2A in my case) get booked? I'll be traveling with a group in India from Feb. 4 to 19, then independently from Feb. 19 to March 11. Can I wait until I arrive on Feb. 4 to book the trains I need from Feb. 19th to March 11th or would they be full by then?

There are less space in the 2A classes than in 3A. You might want to monitor the trains you want on line and see how fast they get booked. I booked a couple of trains from home when we were travelling last year. I booked our train out of Delhi from home. In February, we booked them a week or so in advance while we were in cities with a tourist quota and just had to play around with our dates a little bit. We also travelled mostly in 3A; however to NJP en route to Darjeerling we went regular sleeper. With the tourist quota you should be fine. You also can always book a train ahead of time and then change it if you wish. The cost to cancel a ticket is minimal.

i have the same problem as rajtp above. i dont see the option in payment gatways.
so which option should i click then?

I booked several train tickets on the IRTC website a few weeks ago, and since then the payment options seem to have changed! Whereas before they offered a gateway for Visa and Mastercard, now the options seem to be only for American Express credit cards or Indian Citibank credit cards. Or am I missing something?!

Yes it does. It is there in one of the payment gateways.

Sorry, haven't done it with a 'foreign' credit card for a while: but someone who has should be along soon...

I did book an e-ticket exactly 3 days ago and all went well : I've been using my Visa card issued in Belgium.

And today, I am facing the same problem as you, Englanderin.

I just sent email to care@irctc.co.in : let's wait and see

Englanderin,

payment with international visa or master cards works again !

I am planning on purchasing a ticket online but will not be at the hotel for which I will give the address until the day prior to my train travel. Will that be a problem? How far in advance are the tickets typically delivered?

thanks,
shweta

First of all please remember that you need a paper ticket printed out by the railways to travel by the train.
The above advice is from Beach. I asked the question earlier if you can print off e-tickets on your home computer and use these for travel. The answer was yes. This advice seems to contradict this advice?? Help?