[ECM]

I booked total 8 tickets on 30th(day b4yday),while booking 6 tickets(one can maximum book 6 tickets online)I paid them a sum of Rs.2122,then booked remaining 2 tickets.Then I found that I did not get PNR no.for the first 6 tickets but amount charged inspite of that.I sent them a mail with a complain and in 24 hrs they credited the same amount to my account!!I am pasting my detail of my e-statement which will show the speed of our online railway staff who are prompt in solving probs.I am impressed I must say.
1 31-07-2006 IRCTC Refund - 0000***** CR 2,122.00 INR <<<This has been just credited to my account in just 24 hrs.
2 31-07-2006 IC****/6****/00******/****/Indi DR 2,166.00 INR
3 31-07-2006 IC****/6****/00******/****/Indi DR 802.00 INR
4 31-07-2006 IC****/6****/00******/****/Indi DR 2,122.00 INR<<<<<<This was debited
My original idea was to go in Goa by my car but dropped it due to heavy rain recently.
----------------------------some useful links for all of you-----------------------------
I am targeting goa trip so couple of links are for Goa rail journey in this edited post.
http://mumbaitogoa.com/
http://goacentral.com/Goatravel/train.htm
http://www.indiamike.com/india/index.php<< Travel forum
http://www.indianrail.gov.in/
http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/
http://www.irctc.co.in/ this I used to book my tickets online fm my online banking,its too good and super fast I must say,use it.
http://www.konkanrailway.com/
http://www.irctc.co.in/popular_stati...cehidfhfdfgl.0
Above link is to find station codes
and the last link is also for station codes to locate them,
http://www.irctc.co.in/popular_stati...ml?leftWidth=0
hope above msg helps,thanks

[satish_appasani]

I am using irctc for the past few years and booked ticket many times. Never had a problem. Only issue is it doesn't allow to reserve more than 4 tickets in a month for each account. But you can override this by creating another account. I think this feature is to keep agents away from the site.

[ritik123]

Even my experience with using IRCTC has been very good. Now with the 'print at home' feature I guess it must be even better. I also did experience the 4 tickets a month limit. Then how did ECM book 8 tickets at one go. Maybe thats why his PNR didnt get generated?.

Another good site ( that I have switched over to) is the one of deccan airways. They are also very prompt at processing cancellations and debiting your credit card back. And whats more, you can even check in online.

[ECM]

Originally Posted by ritik123

Even my experience with using IRCTC has been very good. Now with the 'print at home' feature I guess it must be even better. I also did experience the 4 tickets a month limit. Then how did ECM book 8 tickets at one go. Maybe thats why his PNR didnt get generated?.

Another good site ( that I have switched over to) is the one of deccan airways. They are also very prompt at processing cancellations and debiting your credit card back. And whats more, you can even check in online.

I used "I-Ticket"and not "E-Ticket",hope this helps to solve how to book more than 4 tickets at a time."E" is for credit cards I guess and "I"is uses a feature via online banking.(ICICI,HDFC,KTK,UTI ETC..ETC...)
Forgot to add...at 4 p.m I got my tickets by courrier...wow!

[ECM]

Originally Posted by satish_appasani

I am using irctc for the past few years and booked ticket many times. Never had a problem. Only issue is it doesn't allow to reserve more than 4 tickets in a month for each account. But you can override this by creating another account. I think this feature is to keep agents away from the site.

Nupe dear Satish,just see this small tag in that site which shows like below,,,
AGENT's Click Here To Login

[tifosikrishna]

I have done it only once and am very much impressed too. Infact, when you book i -ticket, wherein they deliver the tickets at your door step, you can track the movement of tickets in overnite courier website.

A friend of mine who books tickets on a regular basis, has got reply to queries from their customer centre within ten minutes time. With account transfer options, one need not even have a credit card to do the transaction.

There is been almost a 100% growth in online booking on year on year basis.
Way to go railways...

[gr8guzzler]

Originally Posted by ECM

I used "I-Ticket"and not "E-Ticket",hope this helps to solve how to book more than 4 tickets at a time."E" is for credit cards I guess and "I"is uses a feature via online banking.(ICICI,HDFC,KTK,UTI ETC..ETC...)
Forgot to add...at 4 p.m I got my tickets by courrier...wow!

I-Tickets are the ones that are delivered by courier & E-Tickets are instant online tickets you can take a print out of. You can use credit cards/bank accounts for both options.

[noviceDriver]

The IRCTC site is indeed a useful one. But I have two points to make:
1. Faced numerous problems of "Unable to retrieve data" kinda messages when I am carrying out tasks like a) look for trains between two stations, b) check availability etc
2. I find it very "hard to swallow" thing that one cannot book tickets between 2300 to 0400 IST.

[normally_crazy]

Originally Posted by ritik123

Another good site ( that I have switched over to) is the one of deccan airways. They are also very prompt at processing cancellations and debiting your credit card back. And whats more, you can even check in online.

Ritwik, thats exactly the opposite experience my friend had while booking online.

He booked tickets for his parents from London and when he presed the confirm , he got a message "SERVER NOT AVAILABLE". The money was already transferred to Air Decan accounts and when he called up Decaan to check whether the tickets were booked , they werent. After that he had to go thru torture for cacellation...he asked me to follow up.. I treid unsucessfully for 15 days, then took help of a BHPian in Blore (God bless this tribe)...still it took a total of 45-50 days before the money was retransferred to his account.

My friend is never going to use Internet booking for any Indian Airline now , he says.

[F50]

Well it depends .... but how come 45-50 days???
I booked few tickets with IRCTC it was damn easy but NC i faced same problems last page was not loading and had to go through booking 5 times and finally the main page loaded and it was booked.

And for Airlines, 3 months back I booked 10 tickets with Spice Jet, it was super-easy no hassles at all. In 5 mins tickets were in my hand and got them @ 799 Rs.

[normally_crazy]

Dont ask me mate ! My friend was literally seethig with the responses of Air Deccan and later on i experiencd it too.

[paharino1]

I had read somewhere that the Indian Railways Online Booking site is the largest e-commerce site in India.
ICRTC has been doing a stellar job in providing the top quality service.
In fact, our own dear Mr. Yadav has been quite instrumental in turning around Indian Railways in the past 2 years.
Although many of us may get the creeps with his political success, Indian Railways under him has been a totally different story.

Probably , if BJP had touted it's "Golden Quadrilateral" project, the current Govt has its own success story in Indian Railways.

[ritik123]

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

Dont ask me mate ! My friend was literally seethig with the responses of Air Deccan and later on i experiencd it too.

So our airways is no better than our car dealerships!!. What works for one man doesnt work for another. Why cant we have some robust systems around...everything is so haphazard and unorganised

[ECM]

Most of world's leading airways are in trouble since last 3-4 years and the way under cutting going on here is no where going to benifit them,sooner or later they will understand the hard reality of profit making and then it may be too late for them.Belive or not our govt too took some steps to give away profitable roots to them,there are no.of examples where our govt stopped Indian airlines flights and gave this root to priv.airlines.Very bad.The cost is going up for this cos and I wonder how long they will able to sustain.The biggest example is swiss air which exactly fits in this saga.