[harwood]

hey all!

just spent 2 days trying to book my ticket on the 0103  MANDOVI EXPRESS  from Mumbai to madgaon in Goa on the IRCTC website. Everytime I get to the screen where I put in all my passenger details and click  to the payment step, I get told there was a communication error! I have tried this now on 2 seperate internet connections, over two days, in excess of 30 times! I need to book this 2AC seat asap and with only a week and 4 days until my flight im getting worried! any ideas? has anyone else encountered these problems?



frustrated, tired and emotional,


Max

[iwanttogoback]

hi max

i haven't had this problem, but i know that quite a few regular members are old hands at bookding train tickets. just keep checking back, someone should be along soon.

11 days! lucky bugger.

[malkers]

I'm not much help except to say I had the same problem in the past and also gave up, luckily though I was living in Bangalore at the time so had the option of going to the ticket office.

I feel your frustration mate!

[cyberhippie]

There's really no sure way around this, a lot of the technical hitches are I think, just due to the sheer amount of traffic on a pretty old system.

Anyway some tips that may or may not help.

Time your online booking to be late at night or early in the morning; Indian time

I believe as from today the online booking times have been extended to 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. Which if true is quite handy for some west of India time zones, for instance the in the UK you could start booking at 22.30 or in Europe at 23.30.


Try  MS Explorer and Mozilla both work but I've heard MS works best with the online IRCTC system.

Try getting through the form as quickly as possible, to avoid being timed out.

Clear your cache and cookies before trying again.


For the Indian pin number (post code) the form insists on, any 6 digit number will do

Good luck

[harwood]

Well,

one day later and its still rooted. I even tried to quick book, but it was riddled with problems as well. Thanks for all your help , cyberhippie- I tried what you said, it didnt make much difference   . but oh well. its always hard to organise these sorts of things outside of the country. cant wait till im actually there! bah! at this point im considering buying a day long indirail pass. I just want this ticket organised so my first few days are sorted out, and im not acclimitising to a fantastic new country under stress. thanks again guys,



Max

[john.sw]

Don't use the AOL browser - It is the work of the devil and screws up your connection by changing your IP address every few seconds!

[CRISTOS7]

My lady friend had the same problems, at three different connections, with 4 different credit cards, over two days...

Finally, I registered, logged on, booked the seats, used my HSBC credit card and .... bingo:-)

There may be a *few* people on the planet who can definitively say why it worked (and why it didn't), but I suspect Bill Gates has them in a "safe house" somewhere south of Belleview;-)

Happy Trails!

[Abhijit Sur]

Payment gateway need SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0. Check this in advance section.
If communication error comes close the window and relog again for quick access.
Try before 8am IST and after 10 pm IST when regular booking counters are closed.

[WorldTraveler]

Abhijit Sur, on Jan 23 2008, 01:31 PM, said:

Payment gateway need SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0. Check this in advance section.
If communication error comes close the window and relog again for quick access.
Try before 8am IST and after 10 pm IST when regular booking counters are closed.

I had good luck with Citi Gateway (ICICI did not work for me - frm the US).

[Abhijit Sur]

AmEx gateway should also work from US

[Aishah]

This railways booking site has never worked for me either - will not take my Visa card which is from Australia. A friend told me that it is not accepting any visa cards originating outside India? Does anyone know whether this is true or not?

[cyberhippie]

No Aishah it certainly accepts foreign credit cards, though sometimes YOUR credit Card company declines the transaction.

The biggest problem is just the sheer amount of traffic that uses the system. I read that Mumbai alone issues 2 lakh tickets a day via the CRIS booking system. About 30 percent of these are online bookings, so that would be 60,000 tickets a day, just from the Mumbai booking system.

[iwanttogoback]

cyberhippie, given that most traffic would be from within india, would it be worth timing purchases outside of the indian working day?

[cyberhippie]

Yes that helps but the online booking system only works from 5am to 11pm Indian time.

[Aishah]

Thanks, cyberhippie, for that info. I am about to try to book again as soon as I return to Jaisalmer tomorrow and hopefully get my Broadband on. Also, the hours of booking is very useful, thanks.

[digital drifter]

I'd like to add, it is slow too during India hours.  But I had better luck in the period 19.45 to 2000 hrs IST.  I was able to book 4 separate tickets in  a span of 15 minutes.

One other thing that might save you some time is to create the master list of passengers upfront.  That saves time when booking those RAC/WL tickets.