Indian Railways launches discounted round trip scheme for festive travel

Indian Railways has launched a discounted ‘Round Trip Package’ for the 2025 festive season, offering a 20 per cent rebate on return fares. The scheme applies to confirmed tickets in both directions and aims to ease festival travel congestion

New Delhi: To avoid rush by ensuring hassle-free ticket booking experience during the upcoming peak festive seasons, the Ministry of Railways on Saturday said that it has decided to formulate a ‘Round Trip Package’ on discounted fare and rebates benefit.

The move will facilitate passengers and redistribute the peak traffic for a larger range during peak festival seasons and ensure both sides utilisation of trains, including special trains. “It has been decided to formulate an experimental scheme named as Round Trip Package for festival rush on discounted fare,” the Railways Ministry stated.

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According to the ministry, the scheme will be applicable for those passengers who choose their return journey during the prescribed period. Under this scheme, rebates shall be applicable when booked for both the onward and return journey for the same set of passengers. Passenger details of the return journey will be the same as those of the onward journey. Passengers can book their tickets from August 14 for the advance reservation period (ARP) date of October 13.

“An onward ticket shall be booked first for the train start date between 13th October 2025 and 26th October 2025, and subsequently return journey ticket shall be booked by using the connecting journey feature for the train start date between 17th November and 1st December 2025,” the Ministry stated.

However, advance reservation period will not be applicable for booking of return journey. Other conditions to avail the benefits of the railway’s new special scheme are the booking shall be permissible only for confirmed tickets in both directions, total rebates of 20 per cent shall be granted on base fare of return journey only, booking under this scheme shall be for the same class and same O-D pair for both onward and return journey.

According to Railways, no refund of fare shall be permissible for the tickets booked under this scheme. This scheme shall be allowed for all classes and in all trains, including special trains (Trains on demand), except trains having Flexi fare.

In addition, no modification will be allowed on these tickets in either of the journeys, and there will be no discounts, Rail travel coupons, Voucher-based bookings, or Passes be admissible during return journey booking on concessional fare. Passenger can book their ticket via both online and offline modes; however, both onward and return journey tickets must be booked using the same mode (online or offline).