Are you in the US? If so, you cannot get your visa from the Indian Embassy, you must go through Travisa, as you have discovered. There is no reason to use another visa service like WPVS - you just pay more for the same thing. I used Travisa a couple of years ago to get mine. I got excellent service from them.

Is there any chance you will go to India again in the next 10 years? If you might, get a 10 year visa rather than a 6 month visa.

Yes, I am an American citizen living in the USA.

Thanks, Kathie

Any other experiences with Travisa or tips for making the visa application experience as painless as possible?

As Kathie says, you have no choice about using Travisa. I had no problems getting a 10 year Indian visa through them, although I believe the forms have gotten more complicated since I applied. That is not Travisa's fault.

It's an online application, and hovering your cursor over a blank give you more detail about what to put in the blank. I found it exceptionally well-organized and I loved the fact that you can track the progress of your visa application online.

I liked working Travisa so much when going to India, that I now use them to procure other potentially tricky visas.

i had very good luck with travisa for india...but very bad luck with them for china...

Thanks for your advice and opinions, everyone. What a great resource we have in Fodorism!

They are hit or miss it seems. We had a terrible time two yrs. ago getting a visa for India for my naturalized Indian wife, so much so that we are using a lawyer to get her an OCI visa. It was a complete hassle with misinformation, contradictions and arrogance. Sorry but this is just the way it was.