-
Is there a way to buy a regional JR pass (the Kansai and Hiroshima one) in such a way that you can collect it from a ticket machine at KIX rather than having to queue up?
Thanks
Tony
Is there a way to buy a regional JR pass (the Kansai and Hiroshima one) in such a way that you can collect it from a ticket machine at KIX rather than having to queue up?
Thanks
Tony
So when I did my research, it looked like you could collect it from some machines. But I found the whole thing a bit confusing having never been to Japan at that point and so many things to do with the trains didn’t make sense to me at the time.
Since I also had to pick up an ICOCA card and also my physical tickets for the Haruka Express train in person from the JR office at KIX, I just collected the 5 day rail pass at the same time.
Would be interesting to know which machines can spit out the JR Pass.OK, I’ve been trawling through all the options this morning. I think that our best option is to buy normal tickets for Tokyo-Kyoto and then a Sanyo-San’in pass which, as I understand it will cover all the rest of our travel around Kyoto/Osaka (including Nara), and onto Hiroshima and Fukuoka.
I am a little unsure about how we buy and collect the pass. I think it’s too late to have it delivered here (we head to Japan a week on Saturday and I just don’t trust our post these days). Are we able to collect the passes from a ticket machine in Tokyo (even though it is out of the region covered by the pass)? Also, can we make our seat reservations at this point?
Thanks again for all the kind advice.
If you buy the Tokyo-Kyoto ticket on Smart-Ex, you can print out tickets at home with QR codes on them.
Then, buy the Sanyo-San’in pass at https://www.westjr.co.jp/travel-information/en/tickets-passes/other/ and I believe you can collect that from certain machines (with passport readers) at Kyoto station.
The only problem would be if you’re aiming to get a train straight through from Tokyo beyond Kyoto. The booking process does let you pick which station you collect from but I can’t remember if it’s only JR West ones (which makes sense)
Can’t help with seat reservations on the pass but will be trying myself tonight for our trip next week, so will report back if I figure anything out.
That’s great info thanks TRST. I’ll paste below some info below from Klook regarding the Sanyo pass. It seems to say that you can pick up the physical ticket and reserve seats at the green ticket machines at stations in the area (which would be Kyoto for us).
Please go to the green ticket-vending machines and pick up the physical ticket by scanning the QR code of the e-ticket and non-Japanese passport.
You can also exchange reserved seat tickets here by using the area pass.
For more information about exchange locations, please click the
For more information about exchanging reserved seat tickets, please click the
If the machine breaks down or the passport has no IC chip, please proceed to JR-WEST Ticket Office to exchange the physical ticket.
Refer to the for each JR West Japan station’s opening hours.I used this website to book all my shinkansen tickets https://smart-ex.jp/en/index.php
I could easily change tickets last-minute at no extra cost.
Also, use this https://www.japan-guide.com/railpass/ to work out whether it’s worth buying single tickets or a rail pass, but keep in mind that with a rail pass I don’t think you can buy green car tickets and there’s some extra steps to actually get a ticket for a specific train with a rail pass.
And careful with those lockers – we didn’t realise there was a 72h limit on them and we ended up spending more than an hour at Tokyo station trying to find out where our bags were. We still laugh about it but then and there, it wasn’t super fun! 🙂
VinZ – agree with you that Green Car isn’t an option on those regional passes but the longest trip we have planned is an hour.
Wally – that’s interesting re Klook. I see the prices look the same but you get a free eSim card (and Klook points, too)
VinZ – agree with you that Green Car isn’t an option on those regional passes but the longest trip we have planned is an hour.
Wally – that’s interesting re Klook. I see the prices look the same but you get a free eSim card (and Klook points, too)
Should be able to get 5% from a certain c@shback site starting with ‘Q’ too :-).
OK, so I checked the cash back site – had £40 uncashed. woo hoo!
Klook did let me book with a couple of extras thrown in – free eSim and a Hiroshima tourist card added for £1 more – but when I was looking at the seat reservation details, I found this on the JR West site…
Seat reservations are also available online for passes reserved via JR-WEST ONLINE TRAIN RESERVATION
So swings and roundabouts.
Interesting that the price of my pass on the Klook voucher is Y14000 vs. Y17000 direct, so some nice commission in there for resellers.
I am a little unsure about how we buy and collect the pass.
https://www.westjr.co.jp/global/en/ticket/receive/?railpass=4&online=1&area=48#result suggests that the JR West regional passes can only b collected at stations in the JR West area
To confirm there are a bunch of ticket machines at KIX (they are green) that are fitted with passport readers and I had no wait for one despite the airport seeming busy.
Go through the on screen process, scan the QR code, confirm the ticket, select the start date, read the passport, then it prints out the ticket.
Fine if there’s one of you. I was getting a bit bored by the time I did it for the 4th time. Especially when it decided the IC chip was faulty (it wasn’t half an hour earlier) so I ended up in the ticket office. 30 second wait then a very helpful staff member sorted the last ticket out for me.
I would urge printing out the booking rather than relying on your phone. They tore the “MCO” coupon off my print out to retain it on the one I had to get issued in the office. Not sure what they would do if you didn’t have a hard copy.
And careful with those lockers – we didn’t realise there was a 72h limit on them and we ended up spending more than an hour at Tokyo station trying to find out where our bags were. We still laugh about it but then and there, it wasn’t super fun! 🙂
Don’t worry, Japanese have same issue of not being able to find their lockers at big stations.
Day 4 in Japan. Still unable to fathom how to use a machine to assign seat reservations against the regional JR pass on Shinkansen trains, but staff very happy to do it.
Have found that JR West offices will also help as well as Shinkansen ones.
Booking seats right at departure got us 4 close but not next to one another.
Booking day before, no issue getting adjacent pairs in the 3 blocks.
The regular seats are ok for an hour or so – great legroom but firm like the new GWR ones. Pleased we have Green Car for the longer ride tomorrow.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
