Solving problems with IRCTC/Cleartrip registration

If you have not yet opened a Cleartrip or IRCTC account read this article first http://www.indiamike.com/india-artic...ts-from-abroad

Before you start reading all of this thread you might like to jump to this post where DaveW has kindly summarised the situation as at 24th July 2012



Inspired by Christus who posted a few days ago I decided to try to get my old irctc account reactivated. I emailed care@irctc.co.in with a heading of "Reactivating account from outside India" and quoting my username in the text.

I received an auto response allocating a ticket# to my query. A day later I received an e-mail asking for a scan of my passport. This second e-mail had a second ticket#. I sent my scan quoting the original ticket# and received an auto acknowledgement with a third ticket#.

I then received an e-mail to tell me that I would shortly receive the activation code that I required. After 5 days I had received no answer so I e-mailed quoting the original ticket#. This received another auto response with another ticket# (4 so far).
Today (6th day) I decided to phone irctc Customer Care (+9111 393 40000) The guy I spoke to was very helpful. I quoted the original ticket# and after a few minutes he came back to me to say that they were waiting for my scan to be e-mailed. I asked him to look again under the most recent ticket# and it took him only a few seconds to say that my activation code would be sent out within the next hour.

About 90 minutes later I received an e-mail to tell me that they would shortly e-mail my activation code. 10 minutes later it arrived. When I logged on to irctc and entered the code I got a message to say that it was an invalid activation code. I logged out and when I logged back in the account was active.

Earlier I had notified Amex of my plan to use my card on an Indian site and they assured me it had been cleared. I was able to book tickets that I wanted for the Shivalik de Luxe on the KS which are not on Cleartrip and another couple of tickets just to prove it wasn't a fluke. As far as I am aware Amex is the only card that can be used from outside India. There is an option to log on to the Amex gateway when paying and this is the one I used.

What all this says about Indian bureaucracy I'm not sure. Let's see if this route survives into 2012.

Happy New Year.

Great news. Finally for those who want to use from outside India and do not have an Indian Mobile number.

Wow, Dave - that is wonderful news! Thanks for sharing this!!

Great thread there, Dave, I'd seen this method being bounced around here between Christvs and you and perhaps some others.

(And, credit to Seat61 who apparently pointed out the method to that poster.)

Maybe a few comments: To those who are entirely new to all this, the IRCTC = the Indian Railways, found at http://www.indianrail.gov.in/. Their bookings site directly: https://www.irctc.co.in/.

Secondly, maybe the thread could be retitled to something like "Indian Railways [/or IRCTC] online booking for foreigners: A workaround (2012)," or something to that effect? Seems like essential news to many, that should be immediately recognizable as such. If you can no longer edit the title, maybe a mod could.

Then thirdly, if a mod sees this, it might be worth making it a sticky thread?

Mach
Thanks for that. My only worry is that this will all get fouled up if the dire predictions about non Indian credit cards come to pass. The reason that I had this account in the first place is because it worked for a while in 2010 but stopped taking non-Indian Amex around November 2010.
I should have acknowledged nycank's contribution as he recently pointed out to me that Amex was once more acceptable to irctc.

I've been waiting for the first post to say either Cleartrip still works in 2012 or Cleartrip doesn't work any more. Has anybody tried it yet?

Perhaps I should have made clear that Christus used the Seat61 route to open a brand new account while I reactivated an old one. It looks like both routes are possible.

<Cross-posted, and y'r welcome, Dave.>

nb

This doesn't strike me as so peculiar; by all accounts, pretty much all these measures to do with online booking are to prevent travel agents from abusing the rules and regulations.

If the Railways provide a way to verify that you are a bona fide foreign traveler, and they can now presumably identify what that account is being used for, I can imagine they'd be (reasonably) satisfied in that regard.

My comment on breaucracy was more to do with the endless ticket# numbers that they issue. To me logic says that the original # should follow through. It appears that IRCTC don't agree with my view.

I did send them an e-mail to thank them and they issued another ticket#

vandy

Mod Note: I've renamed the thread as best as I could given the length limitation and also stuck the thread for a while.

You have to use [IRCTC #<Ticket No.>] at the start of every e-mail that relates to that particular <Ticket No.>. If you did not do this, you will get new Ticket# for every (new) e-mail you send.
This instruction is part of the first e-mail reply you get from IRCTC for every one of your new e-mails.
Please read (and follow) instructions properly before complaining about IRCTC or any other agency.

If you read my original post properly you will see that is what I did.

I visited www.railtourismindia.com (run by irctc) and saw a new tab titled "Tours for Foreigners". Perhaps its a new beginning!

I have just tried to book train tickets via Cleartrip and gone as far as the payment process.

No, this has existed for quite some time.

I'm not a package kind of person, but having looked at it over queries here in the past, it doesn't strike me as a bad deal, if they deliver what they promise. (Prices vary considerably between their tours, though.)

I've never seen any real comments on it here; probably because this site just mostly caters to a different segment. More the DIY kind.

But with some of those rail packages, I've been thinking if one day it turns out so, I wouldn't mind giving it a shot.

I have been on three packages with irctc, they were quite good.