Japan Rail Pass 2023; changing, doubling, and cancelling seat reservations

Upvote:2

I also got a JR Rail pass for my trip in Japan. When I got the pass, I took the opportunity to reserve a bunch of seats which eliminates the need to wait in lines later.

Not sure why you say the machine is fairly difficult to use. It was very intuitive for me and comes in several languages. At big stations, there are many machines so I never had to wait long.

Changing or refunding a ticket is much harder. As far as I know, it has to be done at the ticket office. The lines for those are typically much longer.

Jorudan removed some features. I believe Navitime is the current app of choice. I found Google Maps sufficient and used it more than anything else.

Upvote:3

Here is my own answer after dicking around in Japan for two weeks

  1. A good app to find trains is Jorudan. It can be configured to "rail pass only" searches

  2. The best way to reserve a seat is the ticket machines. Waiting times are mostly moderate. You need the physical passes of all passengers and their full passport numbers (but not the passports) themselves. You have the choice of "ordinary seat", "extra baggage seat" and sometimes "seat in car with smoking compartment". Any one will do.

  3. You have to re-enter the passport numbers for each reservation you make. Plan for sufficient time and it's a good idea to have the numbers readily available in an offline document

  4. The nice thing about the ticket machine is, that it gives you a seat map you can select from. That's important if, for example, you want to sit on the "Mount Fuji" or "ocean" side of the train. In the office they just give you whatever they want to give you.

  5. Some trains were full to the gills even way outside rush hour. Reservation is definitely recommended. In the one non-reserved train we took, quite a few people ended up standing.

  6. It's best to reserve at least a few days ahead. Same day reservation can be hit or miss.

  7. They are strict about baggage reservation. If you don't have one, they will force you to lift your bags in the overhead bins. That can be a problem for heavy bags and a some passengers clearly had problems with that.

  8. They DO detect overlapping itineraries. The machine will refuse to make an overlapping reservation and will send you to the ticket office.

  9. The ONLY way to cancel a seat reservation is to go to the ticket office.

  10. Lines at the ticket office can be all over the place. Wait times vary from none to over an hour.

  11. Bonus tip: the rail pass price is scheduled to increase by a whopping 70% in October.

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