Booking a Tatkal ticket is truly challenging a task. Even though IRCTC is putting in the best efforts to make the process easy for travellers across the country with its website and SMS system, users face issues. As per the comScore and ASSOCHAM India report, IRCTC is the popular e-commerce travel site in the country that boasts of highest transaction share in the travel category.
The Indian Railways IRCTC website opens up for train reservations at 8 AM, or 10 AM if you are making a reservation under the tatkal scheme, and the tickets are often booked within minutes. The Magic Autofill tool can improve your chances of getting a train ticket.
On the next page, fill the passenger details and click I'm Feeling Lucky. You'll see a new Magic Autofill button (bookmarklet) that you can drag to the bookmarks toolbar of your browser. Now switch to the Indian Railways website (irctc.com) and click the same Magic button in your bookmarks to fill the reservation form in one click. Speed matters.
If you have never used the Magic Autofill tool before for booking tickets on the IRCTC website, this video demo will help you get started.
Another Tips for fast booking
Indian railway site is visited by one out of five online users in the country and has nearly 12 million unique visitors in a month with majority of the traffic hitting between 10 am to 12 pm. IRCTC offers booking for Tatkal tickets during this time for those with last minute travel plans.
If you’ve also tried to book a Tatkal ticket, you will know how annoying IRCTC’s online passenger reservation system is. Here’re few handy tips and tricks to help you get a confirmed Tatkal ticket faster:
Remember, the Tatkal or last minute online booking window opens just a day in advance of your journey between 10 am and 12 am. You can book only two Tatkal tickets using one user id, so for booking more tickets you need to login using another IRCTC user id. Login to the IRCTC reservation system at around 10 a.m., but as there are thousands of other people also trying to log into the site, you need to be really quick. Use multiple accounts and different browsers to log in. Also ensure that your time is synced with the server time of IRCTC website.
After you have logged in, you should aim to keep the session active. In order to keep the session alive, you must ensure that the screen doesn’t remain idle for more than 3 minutes. Keep everything ready, including your debit/credit card details so that the screen doesn't go idle.
After successfully logging into IRCTC, choose the starting point and destination, this will display a list of trains and you can choose the train and the ticket type. Next, you need to enter all the necessary details such as identity proof. You have to be really quick in entering these details and always keep your identity proof handy.
The IRCTC website is extremely slow during Tatkal booking, so you must ensure that you do not double click on anything. Avoid hitting the backspace button as this will log you off and you might need to restart the complete procedure.
Practice these simple tips and tricks to increase the chances of getting a confirmed ticket.
