Solving problems with IRCTC/Cleartrip registration

Just a quick update about me.
On Tuesday I sent care@irctc my passport scan and asked for help etc. A few hours ago they sent me an email with the moblile verification. So that wasn't too slow a response.
So now I've just got to go back to Cleartrip and finish that part...(fingers crossed!)

The worst thing about all this for me is even without all this registration rubbish, the trains that I'm 'watching' for my future booking don't have any seats available, disappointed, as It's not like I want one tomorrow - we're talking November - just inside that 120 day thing. And there's no way I'm joining one of these 'waitlisted' queues. Dear oh dear.

Spud
If the WL is not too long it might still be worth joining the queue. A lot depends on the specific journey and the ticket quota allocated to it. Cancellation costs are pretty low if you manage to get something better.

Or you could try looking at alternative trains/routes.

Hi Dave. '15' was for one..I don't know if that's considered long but I'm not sure about not being able to get on that late night, over night train. I'll think that over - I'll have to!

Registration update = failed. My fault I think as the Cleartrip username should have been my email and I put down my screen name, that failed, so I rushed to create a new email to look like my Irctc name and then got the 'Username aleady exists and active' reply. I think I need a few days away from all this
Forgetting about Irctc, I'm wondering if Cleartrip itself can help out?

Depends on the class of travel and the amount of accommodation on the train.

I've mentioned before that phoning irctc sorted things out for me. The phone call was maybe 5 minutes and last time I looked BT charge 29p per minute. The number is included in the first post on this thread. Might be worth a try.

I might have to phone. My Irctc account is working though so that's something...I suppose I could nip down to the HSBC and enquire about an AMEX card

Try Sainsburys. They do one linked to their Nectar card scheme. I think that there is a British Airways linked one as well.

ADDITIONAL - Does this link help you at all?

http://www.cleartrip.com/trains/irctc/account/activate

I'll try Sainsbury's HSBC is a no no.
Meanwhile, now I have to start all over again. Irctc sent me another email OTP after I changed my email to match the Cleartrip account, So I take it I have to email them again to ask for a SMS OTP by email, lovely. My mobile is sc**ed too and there's no landline to speed things up.

Yeah, I think that link you gave me was the one I followed from seat 61.

Hi all,

Just wanted to let you know that I did the workaround and it was super simple and painless. I did not have a scanned photo of my passport so I took a picture of my passport with my iPhone and emailed it in and it worked! It took less than 24 hours and that may have been as a result of nagging them with 2 emails within 20 hours.
Easy.
thanks all for the great advice here.

Hi dave
I've been going through all this again from scratch but using the info on seat61, down to a tee. I hit the register for both button after filling in all the sections and I didn't think there would be a problem (new shorter email, fake phone number because if I use my own it might be registered already.) Is there something wrong in the screenshot below do you think? Cleartrip message was "check all the fields in form". I just added a bit more in the address field but that caused a problem too, taking it off and hitting register again gives the "user exists" prompt. A few minutes later though and I did get a 'Successful registration' email from irctc, do you think I should go ahead with passport photo/SMS OTP sending again?
Cheers

Spud

It looks OK to me. I'd go for it.

Help!
Having problems with this, following seat61 to the letter but can't get past step 2!
After the "sorry you cannot proceed with this booking" message, if I click the "register for an IRCTC account now" button, nothing happens.
Been trying for the last 24 hours or more on and off at different times, even allowing for the maintenance shutdown.
Any advice much appreciated.

There have been posts suggesting that some browsers work better than others. Firefox works fine for me.

Hi Dave.

I'm armed with my new OTP mobile, My new email OTP, hot coffee. I feel invincible! Not. Is it normal to to cr*****g yourself at this stage?

So now I'm going to go back to that original Irctc email that says 'SUCCESSFUL REG... etc' and hit the 'Verify at partners website' link.

I'm wondering a couple of things before I go ahead..
Should I give Firefox browser instead of my IE9 a go?
Also If it fails do you think I would be able to try these OPTs with a new MakeMyTrip account instead (never used this company before)

Cheers for all your help so far!

Spud

I am no IT expert. Madame W fills that role in our house and she had us switched over to Firefox a long time ago on the grounds that it is much more secure. I think that we were still on IE when I first booked Indian Rail tickets but it was much easier then. It might be worth you trying.

Unless something has changed very recently makemytrip won't let you use non-Indian cards for rail tickets. I went through the whole process with them (Before the need to synch accounts) and thought that I had cracked it until I got a failed transaction message saying that they don't accept non-Indian cards.

You appear to be one of the unlucky ones so far on this. Have you read the tribulations of homerus earlier in the thread.

Phoning them might be the answer for you. If you Google "cheap calls to India" there are various options and some of them are available for mobile phones.

Did I do it!

No really. I did nothing different from last time (except create a new email and fake mobile number to register at both places) oh and used Firefox. I don't understand why it went through ok.

Was actually going to try Make My Trip too but I'd die if my irctc account got locked because of it. The credit card list at the bottom of Make My Trip does list non Indian cards as being accepted. Maybe that might help someone else.

Anyway thanks for helping me out lots Dave