Using cleartrip or thomascook instead of irctc

I've been reading (for the past few months!) how frustrating it can be to book trains on the irctc.co.in website. But on that website itself, the Railway lists 2 official agents: cleartrip.com and thomascook.in. I took a look and these sites seem fairly easy to navigate, and only charge 20 rs for the booking fee.Has anyone had any experience booking via these companies? I just want to book the 6am Bhopal Shatabdi(train#2002)Delhi to Agra(AC Chair Class). Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

I use Cleartrip for booking flights. It's the google of online travel sites.
Getting refunds is the only problem with Cleartrip: you need to follow up with them persistently. But the money comes through in the end.
However, the only time that I tried to book a train ticket on Cleartrip, the transaction failed.
Using irctc gives me high blood pressure, so if i can't book through cleartrip i'll drive down or take a bus.

I just booked tickets from Mumbai to Madgaon on the Mandovi express using cleartrip, all went smoothly and I received the e ticket instantly! After a couple of days trying to figure our irctc it was a great relief to find an easier site...!

I still prefer to book at irctc.co.in, and to get the information I need at indianrail.gov.in.

In my opinion to book tickets in irctc is very easy and quick once
you know how to do it with, even better and faster in quickbook than in plan my travel, in few minutes I get the transactions almost always.

Jorge

Its very clear.

If IRCTC Works Good all other sites also will work. Otherwise no site will work.
Today i tried to book a ticket through IRCTC and failed. I searched for the alternatives and found thomas cook and cleartrip. Both sites took my details fastly but failed to give the results. Clear trip is better in atleast showing the trains list but thomas cook is still fetching the details from the server for almost 30min.

I have had no issues with irctc website to purchase tickets - works like a charm. I use the ATM/Debit Card option for payment.

Cheers

Nattusbs

We have always booked with IRCTC, the plus about it is if cancell a ticket the money is refunded to your acount with no problem, no need to remind them, they deduct I think 50 Rps per ticket.

I would suggest to book through IRCTC. At least with them you are directly dealing with the Railways. The downside of booking with Cleartrip is their server connection with IRCTC is extremely slow and most of the time they do not work at all.
Also as mentioned above, cancellation is a huge problem with them. I have found out that as long as you book well in advance, IRCTC works just fine. The only time they ever have a problem is if we book tatkal tickets at 8.00 am. Servers are extremely slow at that time.