Comment by razorbeamz
3 days ago
These mixed companies can be very confusing to tourists especially. I'm always answering questions from tourists who are confused why they can't buy a ticket to where they want to go.
3 days ago
These mixed companies can be very confusing to tourists especially. I'm always answering questions from tourists who are confused why they can't buy a ticket to where they want to go.
If you intend to do a fair amount of travelling and your stay is <3 weeks, it may be worth getting a JR Pass[1]. It doesn't work for all lines, but does include the Shinkansen and several of the major inner-city lines. Buses too.
Probably not worth it if you're only visiting one city as the pass is quite expensive. There are regional tourist passes though.
[1]:https://japanrailpass.net/en/
Unfortunately the 70% price rise on the JR pass back in 2023 made it much less likely to be economic for most people compared to just buying tickets as you go, even for trips that visit more than one city. Last time I was there I did a loop up from Tokyo to Hokkaido and back by rail, and it was still cheaper to buy individual tickets. (There are obviously still some itineraries where it works out cheaper, but it's much less of an "obviously good idea for most people" than it was back before 2023.)
Having followed some tourists coming to Japan, a large amount of the people appreciate convenience, and the rail pass gives them that. The price is secondary.
Hell, there are even people paying the equivalent of 100 USD just to have someone pick them up from the Haneda airport and accompany them to the hotel. Not even a taxi service, just to be with them to buy them the train tickets, etc.
Almost everything works with Suica, no? Although to be fair I guess tourists are _more_ likely to use the heritage lines with slightly different rules.
Tourists are often buying paper tickets. There's no way for a foreign Android phone to use a digital Suica, so people with Android are stuck with a physical card or paper tickets, and there's a lot of outdated information online that the physical cards are in low supply (They were last year but this year they're not).
When we visited Tokyo last year, what stopped us from even trying was the online information we came across was unclear and suggested we could only get the physical cards at the airport and at some tourist office, and we forgot to look for it at the airport... I don't know if that is correct or not, but compare Oyster in London which is advertised at practically every corner store, so even if you get into town not knowing the system, it's hard not to find somewhere you can get a card (or you can just use contactless - I haven't had an oyster card in years).
The UK is completely chaotic ticket-wise on a national level, though.
5 replies →
Is this an Android thing? My US iOS works fine with digital Suica.
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It's basically one card for everything, independent of company, in Japan. Only certain trips require tickets from specific companies.