IRCTC or Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, the e-ticketing arm of the Indian Railways, enables the passengers to book train tickets online through its website or mobile app. Passengers booking tickets are assigned a specific status, such as confirmed (full berth), waiting or wait-listed (WL) and RAC (Reservation Against Cancellation). Once all available seats on a train are sold, the Indian Railways releases RACs for railway reservations. When all of the RAC seats are sold, waiting list tickets are released.
Here are 10 things to know about IRCTC’s RAC and waitlisted ticket bookings:
- If the passenger status is marked as WL followed by a number, it means the passenger has a waitlisted status, according to IRCTC’s website – irctc.co.in.
- If the passenger status is marked as RAC, it means that the berth is split into two seats for two RAC ticket holders.
- The status of the tickets might vary based on a variety of reasons. Ticket cancellations by other passengers can increase the chances of confirmation of an RAC or waiting list ticket. RAC/WL ticket holders are also likely to get available seats in different quotas if they remain unused.
- In RAC (Reservation Against Cancellation), the passenger is allowed to travel and two passengers share the same berth.
- If a confirmed passenger does not board the train, a full berth is allotted to the passenger with RAC ticket, according to IRCTC.
- In case of waitlisted ticket, there are two numbers mentioned on the ticket. The numbers detail the position at which a passenger joins the waitlist and the current position in the list. Let’s consider- a ticket with WL5/WL2 means that a passenger joined the WL at position 5, but by the time he/she paid for the ticket and actually bought the ticket online he/she moved to position 2. The position may have varied from WL5 to WL2 either due to a cancellation or due to someone not making a final booking. While the first number (WL5 in this case) will stay the same, the second number will decrease until he/she gets a ticket.
- A passenger can cancel RAC online ticket up to 30 minutes before the scheduled departure of the train. No refund is permissible after that, said IRCTC.
- In case of online RAC ticket, if the reservation charts have been prepared, online TDR (Ticket Deposit Receipt) is required to be filed for obtaining refund.
- Names of the passengers who are left out fully (all the passengers in the transaction) on waiting list after chart preparation, their names are dropped and do not appear in charts. They are not allowed to board the train, according to IRCTC’s website.
- The cancellation of waiting list passengers are done by IRCTC after chart preparation and refund is credited to customer’s account electronically.
Source:-ndtv
