After a half-hour of utter befuddlement trying to comprehend the Indian Railways website's online booking engine, plus two "communications error" transaction failures using my Amex to book a ticket, I finally managed to get the site to sell me a Shatabdi Express ticket for next February's trip from Delhi to Haridwar. So far, so good...only 45 minutes of my life wasted on that.

Then I tried to book the return ticket. After getting through all of the zillion screens to choose the train, passengers, veg/non-veg meal choices, ID card number etc., I went to make payment. Very oddly, this time, the option to use American Express cards was not even listed--only the Indian banks' credit and debit cards. What, I'm not allowed to use Amex twice in one day? I'm only allowed to use Amex to go to Haridwar, but not to go to Delhi? Can anyone suggest what may be the problem here? I do need to book that return!

If you need someone with a Indian bank account to book for you, shoot me a PM.

Thanks. I'm trying again today...now, the option to choose Amex as a payment method is back (??) but after five attempts to book the tickets, I still haven't managed to get a confirmation. The transaction fails every time.

Well, I knew it. After trying many more times to book this thing on the web, then getting a reply to my e-mail from Indian Railways that told me to clear the cache, etc., I finally managed to book my return ticket. But then the real fun started today when my Amex bill showed up. Although I only have one outbound and one return, I've been charged TWELVE TIMES, once for every failed transaction, as well as once for each of the two completed transactions. Great! Now I have wasted another 45 minutes on the phone with Amex to get these charges scraped off, plus 20 minutes composing more e-mails to Indian Railways to tell them that they need to credit me for ten duplicate charges.

Really, it would have been a lot faster (and hugely less of a hassle) to call my hotel in Delhi and get them to do the booking for me. That website is an embarrassment. Beware!

travelmad478 - relax!!! You have nothing to worry about

The issues you describe above are completely normal, including the additional charges against your account for failed bookings.

I went through the same process last year and found the indiamike website to be invaluable (need to do a search for train bookings). Indiamike is the same type of forum we have for flyertalk. Covers everything about india from trains to planes to hotels to business.

Regarding rail bookings, indiamike takes you through all the pitfalls step by step, including the fact that the booking engine is only open for limited hours per day (don't quote me but its something like 10am through to 6pm Indian time). You simply cannot book outside these hours

Regarding the multiple charges, the railways website actually tells you that you will be charged for the failed booking - then it says it will process a refund to you. This is in the small print at the failed booking page. I ran into the problem trying to book seats where availability changed between the beginning and then end of the booking.

In all cases, the $$ was refunded to my CC in about 24 hours. In three cases the exchange rate had changed and I ended up making a profit of $1.34!

Booking trains in India via the website is actually very easy - if you know how. The initial registration process takes about 10 minutes, but after that, provided you log-on at the right time you can book everything very smoothly and transactions go through first time. The system is done well and amazingly, your name appears on a print-out at 2.00am at some station with directions to your sleeping berth!

Regards

lme ff

Amex tends to fail frequently - I've spent some months of my life on that problem!

Well, it may be completely typical, but I wouldn't call it completely normal as far as the way online bookings are supposed to operate.

I think I will be made whole fairly easily (both Amex and Indian Railways are on the case--IR has already done the credit for the overcharges on the outbound fare) but the time wasted on this whole process is still deeply irritating. Once I get on the train, I'll be happy. I've taken this train before and it's a lot of fun.

I am on the edge of my seat!

Thanks for your advice in any case. Next time I have to do this, I'll remember it!

In reply to post 5 above and a quote from this post

At least y'alls aren't doing train travel in China! We don't do bookings on the web here. We go to the station 10 days or four days before departure and stand in long lines and sometimes don't get tickets (for hard sleeper, soft is easy)... Horay for finding middlemen/terrible travel packages...

Lol -- yes, the Indian Railways site is not the well-oiled machine that ft.com is... .

Just an update on the whole ticket buying, train travel experience. We took this trip about 10 days ago and the e-tickets worked exactly as they should have--great!

As for the refunds, I certainly didn't have the experience that LHR/MEL/Europe FF had. I sent two e-mails to IRCTC right away when I noticed all the redundant charges, and they did a few of the refunds within a week or so. The rest of the refunds are only coming through now, several months after the initial booking, and in fact after the travel was completed! Since I had taken the initiative to call Amex right away and tell them about the overcharges, I never did have to pay them, but the process was not at all seamless or quick.

I did enjoy my ride. That train is showing some serious wear and tear though--when I took it about five years ago, the cars looked fresh and new, but no longer. Still, the meal service was fabulous as ever (providing hours of entertainment!)

Glad it all worked out and you enjoyed your time ^

Regards

lme ff

That's how it used to be in India prior to computerisation of Railways reservation system.

The meal service is pretty good. The cabin attendant brought extra ice cream for my kids. For that, he expected a tip later on. I gave him a tip but I felt guilty encouraging such practice. Neither I nor my kids asked for the extra ice cream.

FYI - when booking tix on irctc.co.in with an international credit card, use the citibank payment gateway (from the options listed there) and that will take international Visa / MC and even do verified by visa / mastercard securecode for you, not sure about Amex