For 18-44 year olds who have been struggling with COWIN slots, here are some of my learnings from 4 days of rejection. Finally got my slot today putting this into practice.. (this also applies to 45+ people, but the time window is larger there)

1. Follow @mybmc on Twitter and wait for the announcement between 7 and 8.30. Timings tend to vary. Telegram groups are kinda useless because the turnaround time results in slots being booked before you can react. So save yourself the spam.

2. Don't log in too early. This is a big one. I spent two days logged in and refreshing for 20 minutes beforehand, but got logged out because my session had expired. 4 or 5 minutes before the stated time is ideal. The session lasts 10 minutes I think.

3. OTPs - There are a lot of times when there are just no OTPs coming from server overload. My experience has been, if you don't get one within 15 seconds, it's not coming. So just refresh the browser page and try again. For eg: Today I got my OTP at the 5th attempt in 2 minutes.

4. Once logged in, have your search (District/City) parameters entered in advance. Click on SEARCH. Do NOT refresh or press back. You will get signed out. Also don't search by PIN. Very unreliable. It shows only that exact PIN and not centres nearby.

5. Start clicking on search little before set time. The giveaway that new slots are being added is when you click search, it suddenly gives a "no vaccination centres available" message. Go mad clicking the search button then, because it's highly likely slots are coming soon.

6. Click on the age filter after the list of centres loads, to make your search quicker. Clicking before searching does nothing. Please don't waste time filtering by Covaxin/Covishield. Just take what you're getting. It doesn't matter.

7. If you see slots available, don't waste time thinking about which is the most convenient. If you see one that's remotely accessible and it catches your eye, just CLICK ON IT.

8. Once you click, you have to select time slot (on top) and enter a captcha (below) before clicking confirm. If you're successful, it'll give you confirmation. Click DOWNLOAD because the PDF you get has a PIN you'll need when you get your shot (comes on SMS too but not reliable)

If you click confirm and nothing happens, that centre is booked. Click the BACK ARROW and not back on your browser and repeat the search process again. All slots don't come at once. They trickle in over 15-20 minutes. Don't give up. It is a lottery at this point, but it'll happen

Also I can't stress this enough - LAPTOP AND MOUSE! Trackpad too slow and phone don't even bother