Train ticket online booking: Pay for a ticket only when it's confirmed, get instant refund if cancelled

THERE is a mechanism to book Indian railway e-tickets without paying money for them immediately. This option is enabled only in the i-Pay payment gateway by IRCTC and is called 'Autopay'. Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd. (IRCTC)'s iPay payment gateway's 'Auto Pay' feature works with a unified payment interface (UPI), credit cards and even debit cards.

According to the IRCTC website, "The user's bank account will get debited only once the system generates the PNR for the railway ticket." This mechanism is similar to how an initial public offer (IPO) application works using UPI.

Who will benefit from IRCTC iPay Autopay?

It is only those individuals who are booking a high-value railway e-ticket or trying to book a waitlisted normal or tatkal ticket that will benefit the most. According to the IRCTC website, iPay Autopay is most useful in the following scenarios:

Waitlist: AutoPay is more beneficial where the e-ticket does not get booked even after the deduction of payment from the user's bank account due to 'Berth choice not met' or 'No Room' scenarios.

Waitlist Tatkal: If Tatkal waitlisted e-ticket remains on the waitlist even after chart preparation, in such cases only applicable charges (cancellation charges, IRCTC convenience fee, and mandate charges) will get deducted from the user's account and the lien amount (autopay) is released back to the individual's bank account.

Instant refund: If an individual is booking a waitlisted ticket, then on unsuccessful allotment of a confirmed ticket the money deducted would be refunded in three to four business days. If the booking amount is higher then getting an instant refund for that would help the individual book alternative transportation options without any additional money. However, if an individual had used IRCTC iPay's Autopay feature to book waitlist tickets and confirmed tickets could not.

"This gives financial freedom to customers in above mentioned cases where customers want to do the subsequent bookings on the same/next day without worrying about the credit of the refund amount into their Bank Account from IRCTC. Using the Autopay feature, money will only be debited once the waitlisted ticket under Tatkal quota gets confirmed," says IRCTC on their website.

How to use the IRCTC iPay Autopay feature

Here's a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Go to the IRCTC website or app and input your travel details. Next, select your train coach and input passenger details.

Step 2: Select the appropriate button to pay for the selected train coach. There would be many payment gateways including one called 'iPay', click on that. Once clicked a new page would open and there would be multiple payment options: Autopay, credit card, debit card, IRCTC Mudra, and Net Banking. Select Autopay. Within the Autopay option, there are three options: UPI, credit card, and debit card. Click any one of them and input the relevant details.

The money would be put on lien by the bank and be deducted only if confirmed tickets can be booked for the selected travel details.