Setting up your IRCTC and Cleartrip accounts for buying railway tickets from abroad

I checked again just now and the Amex option has re-appeared on the IRCTC site.

...great work Dave. Will take a peep and let you know how I get on.

Hurray, MADGAON-DELHI booked with 2A via IRCTC using Amex. Ace.

Hi,

I've got this to the stage where I have registered with IRCTC and can now log in to that site but I seem unable to sync my Cleartrip account as it keeps on saying I have used an incorrect mobile OTP.

I have since had a new mobile OTP issued but this will not work either.

One of the things that i have noticed which doesn't seem to be covered in this guide is that I receive a new email OTP from IRCTC each time I try and sync the accounts through Cleartrip. Is this normal? And which one should I be using?

Haven't managed to get hold of anyone on the phone at Cleartrip as their "Press 1 for Flights, Press 2 for Hotels, Press 2 for Trains" doesn't seem to actually let me enter any of those options.

Any ideas? Getting stressed now as need to get some tickets booked!

Thanks,
Will

Will

Cleartrip's phone help line is just a waste of money. To synch your accounts use the link on the SUCCESSFUL REGISTRATION email that you should have received from IRCTC - shown as step 7 in Ramy's guide. Try going back to the original Mobile Verification code.

Make sure that you open the irctc account page and login before you try the link.

Hi Dave,

Just wanted to say thanks for your quick reply.

Tried again (well about 9 times) and finally managed it this morning!

Not sure what made the difference,

- Pure luck with the 3rd SMS OTP
- Time of day logging onto the site
- Using the link in the email to get to the point to synch the accounts
- using Internet explorer

I think actually my issue was that I didn't follow the steps 1 by 1. After registering at IRCTC I then when back to cleartrip and instead of following the activation link in the email (with email OTP) found a different activation screen. Each time I did this a new email OTP was sent out which I think invalidated the SMS OTP I had waited so long for!

Thanks for your help! Now the pain of actually booking the tickets!

Thanks again and thanks to Ramy for the guide.

Will

Will be possible booking a train ticket next week,will quite a lot of money (need still to get AMEX card) went into ICTRC site and got to the booking site which said a SMS will be sent to the fictitious number, no problem about that but do I get a Email conformation also of booking and be able to print a Eticket?

dcamrass1

You will get a confirmation e-mail and the booking details will be held in your account which you will need to access to print off your ticket.

ADD - This is what your Booked History page looks like when you log in to your IRCTC account. I have obscured the detail of the journeys.

The IRCTC website is generally very busy in the morning hours (IST). However it gets fine in the afternoon.
Once an user is registered on IRCTC with all details like address/phone number etc there is no need of providing those details again during ticket booking.

I have found that the following things help when using this website.
- Login after you have all the details of which train you want to book
- Enter exactly 3 letters of the source station and the destination stations
e.g. Station Name- Yesvantpur - enter 'Yes' and you will get the drop down quickly to select Yesvantpur
NOTE here- Even though Yesvantpur is in Bangalore , selecting Bangalore as source station and then finding all trains that leave from Bangalore - the query may fail. Enter the exact station name and only 3 letters.

- Once you have entered the details and got your train name - select the exact class you want to travel viz SL , 3AC etc. Searching is very slow and may time out.

- Once passenger details are asked enter those quickly. It times out pretty fast here and many users tend to spend time on this page getting the information. Keep the information ready beforehand.

The rest of it is the payment gateway. I have found the ICICI and Citibank gateways to be the best.

Customers who do not have an Indian credit/debit card can only use the American Express gateway on the IRCTC site.

Let me be another to thank Ramy and Dave W (and Nadreg for making the information easily available). I followed Ramy's procedure EXACTLY, and everything went smoothly. Took almost exactly 24 hours from sending the E-Mail to IRCTC with passport scan to get the Mobile OTP. Everything else fast and flawless.

I tried to do as much of the interacting with IRCTC and Cleartrip as possible between about 0430 and 0700 IST, which may have helped (this is fairly easy to do from the West Coast, USA).

My hair has regained it's length, so it's time for me to try again.

Oops, can't go the suggested route till 12:00 IST, cleartrip won't allow.

OK, to save time (and likely cause me endless frustration) I'll register with IRCTC first, ok, all done, sent email for OTP to IRCTC

Oh balls, copied previous email to IRCTC, changed username, forgot to change email.

Sent correct email to IRCTC

Now wait, and pray I don't need to pull my hair out again.

Need 2 lots of train tickets, and they're already selling, so I'll be really pissed if I can't sync the accounts this time.

It will be interesting to see if that works. The proven method seems to be starting with Cleartrip who pass you on to IRCTC. Once you have cleared the IRCTC hurdle you use their link to synch the accounts.

I AM NOT AN IDIOT!

OK, got that out, pity I don't feel any better for it.

I've finally had enough of cleartrip, I've now used 4 different emails to set up new accounts at both cleartrip and IRCTC, and I've twice registered first at IRCTC, and twice registered first at cleartrip, OK, I've not part-registered at one, then registered at the other then completed the registration of the first one (as seems to be the solution), but every time I get all the way to the end, and get the message that the Mobile OTP (other common names include Mobile Verification Code) is incorrect.

I'm a bit of an expert in how do go through this procedure, I've certainly tried it more times than most, and in the last 3 attempts I've double and triple checked every step, this last time I've made sure I was alone, turned off the TV, drunk plenty of water, and tied the cat up, I wanted to guarantee there were no distractions, I couldn't have put more concentration of effort into this last attempt, and still, the same result.

I give up.

If I attempt to register again, I'll get all those accounts closed when IRCTC run their next tout check.

So what about cleartrip's reason, well, cleartrip is the company that tells it's users that certain trains can't be booked, just because they can't be bothered to go through their database to find their errors, so I'm not even convinced they're giving me the correct reason, after all, I know I'm putting in the correct codes, are they 'timing out' and just giving a different reason, I don't know, but I'm not trying again.

I only need 2 sets of tickets, one set I can go without, there's a different train that has similar timings and always has very late availability, so we'll get this train, it just means a 80km taxi, we can live with that, and the other train, well, we'll fly.

How many potential tourists are put off going to India because of this nonsense?

I´ve also been one of the lucky ones - I managed to sync my Cleartrip and IRCTC accounts within a calendar month and only 3 email OTPs (Maybe 5 mobile ones) for sure some of the errors were my own, but the whilst Cleartrip helpdesk was friendly they were not able to help provide any assistance, I cannot recommend them...

My current problem is that I am unable to book a train journey.
The error message :-

User is pending for verification, booking not permitted

appears.

I´ve once again sent a mail to care@irctc and have little hope that the response will allow me to book, I´d like to know if this is a known issue, I´m just unlucky or I´ve cocked something up again...

thanks
Gareth