This article is not relevant only because it provides information about booking e-ticket but also important as it gives details about filing TDR for refund of money in case your train is delayed more than few hours or AC of the coach does not work properly. If your train is late say by 4 hours and you've an e-ticket, what to do in such a case. If you go to counter of the computerized reservation centre, staff present at the counter would show inability to cancel the e-ticket.Do you know further course of action? If not, go on reading.....

In India, modern technology has made life really much easier compared to few years back. Whatever problems people faced due to lack of facilities in the last decade are being eased through modernization of equipment and technology. Long queues on the reservation counters have vanished as people can book their tickets for train or air travel comfortably without hassles from their home.

A. Train Travel Reservations

Computerized Reservations: The beginning

A little bit of improvement in overall situation was observed with computerization of ticket counters all over the country. However, there was no relief from long ques but the system got fair amount of transparency.

Reservations through Internet:

Now the difficult period is over courtesy Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation limited, a Govt. of India Enterprise. You can reserve your train tickets from your home provided you have a computer, a printer and internet connection. If you don't have all these facilities, you can do it from a cyber cafe or even there are some agents who can do it for you for a small burden on your pocket. I have used this service and I am completely satisfied. IRCTC really deserve appreciation for providing such a good service at very small price.

How to book your e-ticket?

Before e-ticketing, IRCTC experimented with i-Ticketing. In the i-Ticketing, tickets are booked online by logging on the site and site sends tickets by the courier. This service was limited to few cities in the beginning. Now this facilities is available in most of the cities. This service is very useful for travelers who don't have any identity proof to book e-ticket.

e-Ticketing: The most useful service offered by IRCTC, for booking your ticket and taking a printout on plain paper using a printer at your home, is e-ticketing.

1. Get yourself registered online by submitting the Registration Form available in this web site with your personal details. Registration is completely free. You will get a user-name and password for subsequent login on the website. Click this link to get registered.

2. After login, you will be directed to the page "Plan your Travel"

3. Here you have to provide details of the source and destination station, class of travel, date of journey and type of ticket (i-ticket or e-ticket). After supplying this information you have to click "Find the train". While selecting source and destination station, take care to input only 4 first characters of the source and destination stations. Alternately, you can click on the icon and select the stations.

4. After you click the tab "Find the train", all the available trains on that particular date will be listed and you may look for availability of births.

5. Once you get assured that reservation is available you have to provide details about the passengers". As per the recent changes, you will not asked to give identity details but you have to carry identity proof with you while travelling.

6. You may use your driving license, passport or electoral/official identity card.

7. Next step is to make payment, click the tab

8. Choose the bank you have got ATM or credit card for payment.

9. Now you are taken to payment gateway and you have to provide details of your card.

10. The site is secured by Verisign and hence chances of any fraud are almost Nil.

11. After payment is made successfully , you can print your ticket using a printer.

12. You can reprint your tickets later on clicking "Reprint ticket" if you fail to print while booking

Amount charged by IRCTC: IRCTC levies a service charge of Rs.10/- (Second / Sleeper) and Rs.20/- (Higher Class) for the first passenger and an additional Rs.5/- for every subsequent passenger upto a maximum of Rs.25/- (Second / Sleeper) and Rs.40/- (Higher Class).These charges are revised time and again.

Amout charged by the banks: This amount varies from bank to bank but it is nominal considering the benefits.

Cancellation of e-Tickets befiore chart preparation:

If passenger want to cancel e-ticket for any reason, the ticket can be canceled online without any difficulty but before the chart preparation. just click on the button "Cancel the e-Ticket" after opening the "Booked history" window. Status of the ticket in the booked history get changed to "Canceled/Modified". If status is still showing "delivered", it can be confirmed by clicking on "PNR status". The site (irctc) will depost the due amount to the account from which the ticket was booked. It may however, take few days.

Cancellation of e-Tickets after chart preparation:

If passenger fails to cancel eTicket before chart preparation, he can file TDR by clicking the button "File TDR". However, a criminal case case can be filed against the passenger if he or she falsely claims refund by filing TDR. TDR has to be filed within 30 days of departure of train and its processing may take 2-3 months.

Passengers can file TDR in following cases if they fail to perform the journey due to any /or the following reason
1. If a train is cancelled ( full refund is allowed)
2. If a train is running late by more than three hours (full refund) is allowed
3. If booked accomodation is not provided for any reason (Difference in fair)
4. If AC fails during journey (difference between AC and non AC of same class)
5. If passenger travelled without proper ID proof (discretionary refund)
6. Wrongly charged by TTE
7. Party partially travelled
8. Passenger Not travelled

Details about filing TDR are available at the IRCTC site.

Cancellation of i-Ticket

• online refund request is not allowed.

• Surrender the I-Ticket with the Station Master and obtain a Ticket Deposit Receipt.

• Send your claim for refund to the address given below after attaching the TDR:

General Manager (Operations),
Indian Railway Catering & Tourism, Corporation Ltd.,
2nd Floor, STC Building,
1, Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi - 110 001.

Benefits of e-Ticketing using IRCTC website:

1. You need not go to a railway station to book your ticket and thus avoid long wait in a que

2. Its cost-effective in terms of time and money

3. You can book births of your choice

4. You can cancel your tickets from your home and money will be transfered back to your account immediately

5.IRCTC provides all help for cancellation of tickets even after departure of train or after chart preparation

6. You can plan your travel from your home

7. You can book even waitlisted tickets from your home

8. If you travels frequently in AC, you can avail advantages of special scheme offered by IRCTC and travel freely based on points earned by you.

Demerits:

Only disadvantage I noticed with this service was to plan onward journey. I failed to book a single ticket if I had to travel by two trains to reach the destination. There may be a provision for booking a single ticket but I could not do it. I have to explore this possibility yet in near future.

Yeah, I noticed another disadvantage of booking e-ticket using irctc.com. After getting comments from visitors about the locked lower births in sleeper class, I also tried to book atleast one lower birth using the option to book atleast one lower birth out of all the tickets but failed to succeed in several attempts. To clear the user's doubts, someone from the IRCTC should make it sure that system isn't tempered and booking of lower birth is not locked for sleeper reservation thru irctc site for booking e-ticket.

Caution:

i) e-tickets can only be cancelled through www.irctc.com only. Hence, make all efforts to cancel your ticket atleat 6 hours prior(before chart preparation) to departure of your train. If you fail to cancel your ticket before chart preparation, send an email at earliest with a request for cancellation of ticket. Such cancellation are taken up by irctc staff manually.If you forget to do it there are all chances that you may lose your money.

2) Always pay attention to train's departure time. For example, if you have booked your ticket for 1-1-2009 and trains departure tie is 00.01, it means train will depart in the night of 31-12-2008.

I have missed my train once on this account. Reason: I frequently travelled by this train. Earlier its departure time was 11.45 PM. Having the same impression, I booked e-ticket for this train after a long time. When I boarded the train, I found that same birth was booked in the name of other passenger. When I looked at departure time, I found that train has left previous night. I have to repay for the travel. It happens sometime.............

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2. Air Travel reservations

Similar to railway bookings, air travel bookings were the jobs of authorized travel agents in India and elsewhere. However, advancement of technology has made it possible to book e-ticket for air travel also at the ease of sitting in your home or office. Real benefits of technology in India are now being realized by corporates as well as people. Development of technological infrastructure not only helped financial institutions to extend their activities and expand their networks but also in expanding their growth. Collaboration with different agencies/merchants helped them to open their gateways and allow their customers to make payments from their home.

Earlier eticketing for air travel was possible only with the sole use of credit card and it also involved financial frauds also. However, use of double authentication of password has made it difficult for thieves to steal other's money. Here, this discussion means to convey that use of credit card or net banking is safe to a great extent.

Coming back to the eticketing, the tickets can be booked online now straight from the airline's website or through a third party i.e. an online website facilitating booking of air tickets at cheaper rates. However, these travel sites like makemytrip.com, yatra.com and several others  charge a commission for providing this help. Charges may vary starting from a minimum of Rs 250 or more as their service charge. Mode of online payment is either by credit card or using internet banking.

Process is very simple. One has to register either on an airline's site or an travel site. After registration, login is done using username and password provided by the site. Provide the details of the journey by keying in the information related to place of journey, from where to start, date etc using search boxes. Site provides you  different options by giving name of the flights, timings, air fare for different classes. You can choose from the options like refundable or non-refundable fares, economy or business class etc. When you click on "Book this flight", you are asked to select payment options like credit card or internet banking. Select the appropriate option.  You will be driven to the gateway of your bank. Here you have to log in into your internet banking account and confirm the payment. Once you confirm the payment, you are taken back to the booking site and details of your journey are displayed. You are asked to take a print out of the ticket. If you don't have a printer attached to your computer, you can take a printout lateron after login to your account.