The Best Way to Purchase Shinkansen Tickets : Complete Guide to Bullet Train Tickets

Japan's bullet train also called shinas is a fast train service that a convenient Transportation method when travel in Japan Shas connects from City Center to city center so it's very competitive comparing with the airplanes especially for travelers who have spent enough time on the plane just come to Japan you might find it interesting to travel with shinen instead of going back to the airport to take playes G it used to be common for international travelers to use Japan raed pass to use shansen but with recent revision of Japan raed pass it's getting difficult to get the most of the pass at Le price wise especially if you're traveling in Japan for a short period like a week or if you I is a type that you staying one place longer it's got difficult to get the most of the Japan lers so you might now have more opportunity to purchase Shas and ticket it has been common to purchase Shas and ticket at the station Counter or at the machine in the station but recently it's also getting common to purchase online and depend on the rout and the site you use and the timing you purchase you can get not a small discount but purchasing ticket online is not as simple as it sounds because Japan shinas is operated by different companies which is a former National Railway that are separate to six different companies now and each of them has different portals for the reservation and there's also online agency like cook so you might wonder what is the best choice for you to purchase the S and ticket so in this video I'd like to go about how to purchase tiet for your shinkansen ride at the station and online which site covers F routs of shinkansen which site is the best site for you to make reservation for Shinken tickets there are roughly four different Shinken roots in Japan and one too s kushu shansen that are the probably the most major route of shinkansen for some people maybe this is the image of the shinen or bu train this one is connecting from Tokyo to to kyotto Osaka and farther to Hiroshima and all the way to kushu from Tokyo to Osaka is operated by J Central based in NAA and further there is operated by J West from mosaka to Hakata Hakata is inoka City's main station's name from Hakata and farther it's operated by Jr kushu so the operator of the Shas and changes but it's connected as one route and from Tokyo to Hakata has a through service which means you know how to transfer and you can just stay on the train from Osaka Shin Osaka station to kagoshima CH station which is a southern tip of the chusu island you can also use the through service second major route is the to hokido shans that has a little Branch out to AK shansen and yamak shansen this is the route overed by jail East and jail Hokkaido and it goes north from Tokyo going through sandai alori and at this point it go to the chin hak hokto station in Hokkaido and it is going to extend going through kuchan nearo and go to saporo in the future and the third route is a joet Shas and going to n which is a short route has a little Branch to G which is a ski resort four one is a h sh it goes to Kwa Nagano and go around the northern Alps of Japan and go to Nawa and now extends to tuuga so these are the four major shinas and rots so now let's see how you can purchase the Shinken ticket at the station the ticket office is oper by the local ja company and in Tokyo it's oper by jail East at Tokyo Station and shinagawa station where tokaido Shas lands you see ja Central counter too the ticket office is called mid noi in Japanese and it's common name for the across Japan except ja Central which is called J Jen kiver whichever office you go you can purchase shinas and tickets for all shinas in Japan and jail limited Express too jail East have an additional counter called jail East Travel Service Center this office is called aabon shes in Japanese this is a place have a function of supporting forers from abroad you can get support for your Raad pass and also you can purchase Shas and ticket in case you find this office they might have a little more staff that speaks English more than regular ticket office for example this is Park exit of J weno station in Tokyo there's a person but you cannot purchase shinas and ticket here you can look for either ticket offices or tribal service counters it seems there's one in the gate of Jr regular train Concourse and one outside the gate with Travel Service Center when you purchase I recommend you to write down the train details you like to take such as time and destination you like to travel and requests such as window seats for smoother transaction you don't see the counter at every station recently only major station or busy station has this ticket office also in case there's a trouble on shansen or during the peak season the line of the counter can be pretty long in that case you might want to consider using the ticket machine in the station unlike the counter these machines available at many J stations even small stations there's one at this park exit of R Station 2 this is j e station but this machine allows you to purchase for JA Central too shansen too you can choose your seat from seat map or you can also choose a seat with luggage space here let me explain about the luggage rules most of Japanese trains has very easy going luggage limit of 250 cm total dimensions times two per person but only tokaido s kushu shink and rout has additional rules that luggage with total dimension of 160 cm or bigger you need to make a reservation for the seats coming with a luggage space either behind your seat or a space near the door with a key if you have suitcases smaller than that you can put above your head but no additional cost for this seat with luggage space so if you are traveling with big luggage you might want to make sure to get these seats your peace of mind during a trip but some of you might want to make reservation from the comfort of the hotel or if you're introvert person like me that you don't want to talk to the counter person or if you worry that there's someone waiting behind you when you purchase a ticket machine you might be able to consider using the online reservation site first there's not one official site that you can book for all shin and sense in Japan today I'd like to introduce three major site F site is or fit shent what kind of discount or benefit you can get if you book from that site first let's see the ex site this is a site you can make reservation for the tokaido S kushu shansen you cannot make reservation for other shinen lines or any limited Express trains only this to shansen this shin and rout is probably the most popular one for international Travelers and there's also different discounts available so i' like to spend some time to explain this sit so let's look at the website of ex ex you can make an account for the site with your credit card and make reservation after by just making the membership your credit card won't be charged so first let's say I'm going to kyotto from Tokyo in one month later so if you type the time and destination the trend that run that day comes up in this route from Tokyo there's a noomi hiar and Pama depends on the number of the stops you makes the fastest one is noomi and it runs most frequently so probably the most Travelers might want to take this one if you go to k Osaka or farther but even Kodama it's called super Express because it runs as fast as noomi between stations it's just stop all stations so it does take time but there's also opportunity that you can take with a cheaper price so if you are not in the rush you might be able to take Kodama too you see this n700 is the type of the trains and most of the Train on too shans and this route is this n700 but sometimes you see this n700s which is using the newer cars and not a big difference and probably you might not be able to even recognize but uh each seat has a power outlet which the n700 only has the the window side and also the cars are very new so it's very comfortable to be on I feel so if you can find this a 700s you might be able to choose that one and if you choose a train the different types of the seats and the tickets that are available at the time of your booking shows up the green car is like a fast class car and it has a wider seat and also the green car noomi and hiar has access to the food service so if you choose on your smartphone they will bring a food or the drinks for you it's not including in the fair so you have to pay for it but you can order the beer or coffee or any snacks during the travel so it is co because shans used to have a wagon to service but in the end of the 2023 the service finished so now if you are on other cards except green cards you have to get plenty of water and boot before you get on board with the trains the too sha operate with 16 cars and the middle three cars are green car other seats are reserved seat and non-reserved seat non-reserved seat is three cars attached to the Noom Kar has five cars and non-reserved seat is a ticket type that you can just go to the platform and wait for the train and find your seat and this s work seat is uh new types of the train it's made for the work so you can make a phone call on the train or you can make the typing sound on the trains it is says it has a stronger Wi-Fi but I don't know if it's can connect because usually the shink and Wi-Fi is not so you might be able to get your own Wi-Fi you need to do some work during the time you on the shin and another and the last one is regular reserved seat and for this one is probably the most common one and there are different types of theair available so in this case this smart ex is a regular fair in this site it's 2 Yen cheaper than the regular price usually but for most Travelers it's not necessarily cheaper than purchasing at the station this is because smart ex is only including the shinas and price and this is because if you travel more than 2011 kilom for example from Tokyo to Osaka or Tokyo to kyotto you can travel from metropolitan area to Metropolitan Area stations for the shansen price for example if you take Shas from Tokyo to kyotto but you are taking J line from Shia station to Tokyo station and change to shansen and when you get off at kyotto you don't leave the station and if you go to the Saga Alama station directory the ride between shib and Tokyo Station and kyotto to Sagar station which will be total about 450 Yen so a few dollars but those are included in sh and price if you purchase at the stations however when you purchase the smart ex that doesn't apply it only Walks from Tokyo Station to Kyoto station maybe it was a little too much information but smart ex still has lots of Merit usually you can purch Shin ticket only from one month before the travel date but with this ex site you can book from one year before the travel but it's not like the area the cheaper there are several different discount faires but there's a specific period of the time that you can make a reservation and there's also a specific section of the train ride that you can get discount fairs so first let's see hok 21 which is most common one probably and easy to understand this hayok 21 is available from 1 month before the travel date to 21 days before the travel date by the way in Japan train system there's no Dynamic pricing that the price changes depend on the demands or the availabilities but only thing is the slot of the discount fair is limited for example making reservation 21 days prior to the TR date doesn't mean it's guaranteed that you can get a 21 day discount it can be sold out on the one month before the date it start to sell so it's always better to purchase the ticket a month before the travel date and next one is ha 28 this hok means can early discount and this hok 28 is a new type of Affair that introduced in end of the 2023 and this one allows you to pchas from 90 days before the travel date to 28 days before travel date unlike 21 you cannot choose the seat if you book before one month so you can only put the request and they will send you email that this is your seat when it becomes a month before your travel date so if you like to use hok 28 and you like to choose a specific seat from seat map the only way is you book from a month before to 28 days before which is like only two 3 days of course when you try to purchase a month before the fair of 28 might not be available anymore so in case you like to get the Mount Fuji side for sure like which is CD on the green card and D on the regular cars or non reserved car you can maybe purchase after 1 month from the seat map and in case it's busy in the morning time if you make it a little bit very early or later you might be able to get some seats available or some fairs available and something really good is Ha took three green white this one you can make reservation until 3 days prior to the travel date and you can get on the green car which is a first class with big discount so for example from Tokyo to kyotto you can travel for 15,400 Yen on the green card noomi and F almost same price with the regular Fair of the Nomi in case you P the sh station so I think with a thousand Oro difference it's a great deal that you can get on the Green carard in case you like to say more on the shans and fairs you might be able to consider taking Kodama trains there's a higher three green Kodama fairs that that you can get on the Kodama green card so it takes time but it is comfortable and for Kodama there's no food service even for green cards but if here with your friend you can purchase lots of things like foods and drinks and go on the train it will be kind of fun time so you might wonder how slow Kodama is for example noomi leaving Tokyo Station at 8:00 is arriving kotto at 10:15 and Kodama is leaving 3 minutes before that from Tokyo Station and it will arrive 1 hour 19 minutes later that noomi arrives so it will arive at 11:30 four so it's all about how you think about this 1 hour and 90 minutes more when you make reservation if the fair you like to get is available it shows up if it doesn't show up it's not available so I recommend to look around different Slots of the times after you purchase on this ex site there are three ways to get on the shinker and train and one is to show the QR code from your account and scan that to the machine and get the physical paper ticket and the second way is to tag your reservation information to your IC card so any IC card is okay it can be EA from Kanai it can be passo from private Railways and you can tag the SAS and reservation information to this so in that case you can just tap this to the machine and little paper with the SE information and train information comes up when I try to use this for the first time I was very nervous can I really go through with the IC card and it was great I could just go through it and the Third Way is it's available only for international Travelers you can show the QR code on your phone and you can just tap that to the machine at the gate also the paper comes up from the machine so in case you tap the QR code directly to the ticket gate or you T your ticket information to the Seer each person need need a s and each person need a smartphone so that is something you might want to make sure so for example if you purchase four tickets for your friends you can purchase with your credit card but for four def dissention information you need to tag to each s and from the account you can just type this number of the s that are written in the behind something to be careful is the regular seat of the shin that you purchase the station or ex fair you can get on the any non reservable seat in case you miss a train but if you put any fairs that says higher Tok which is early discount you cannot get on the any train after that even non-reserved seat so in case you think you will miss a train make sure to cancel the train whichever the way you purchase Shas and ticket you can get to refund with a few dollar fee so in in case you cannot make it it's better to get refunded so from the time the train you made the reservation leave the station you cannot access to the information of the reservation so you cannot do anything but next day they'll find out that you didn't go through the gate you didn't take the train and they will refund you a special amount it's not a lot but you don't lose everything you get some money come back automatically to your credit card but this is only only for the smart EX in case you issue the ticket you have to go to the counter and ask for it but this is also a great combin of the smart ex that you can make changes and everything online with your smartphone and next let's see J East reservation site this J East reservation site covers all shansen by JL East but it doesn't cover the too s Shas that I talked about earlier but all other Sinker things covered by this chair is reservation and also limited Express trains or special TRS in ja East and Hokkaido area so in case you B limited Express in Hokkaido you can also go to this site of J East reservation site and this site system is a little different from the ex that I introduced earlier but this English site lots of reasonable Jr East Regional passes are available so in case you take the Shas Jr East or Hokkaido usually you can get more reasonable fair if you get the pass and get on the Shas with regional passes which is not available for Japanese people for example J East South Hokkaido pass is 35,000 year for 6 days and you can get on the shinas unlimited from Tokyo to Shak hokto station and you can also get on the limited Express to all the way to sapo and anything in between so this will be very reasonable there are lots of other ja East passes so in case you travel around more than 5 days in the north of Tokyo you might want to get this jail East Pass depends on your I and this jail East reservation site is very well done for the pass holders in case you have certain pass either purchase from the this official site or even from other site you can make reservation for the seat from this site for example if you get the J South hokido path that I mentioned earlier the train that are available with your path comes up so you can choose example from Tokyo to hakodate and hakodate to sapo you can make reservation for the seat using your pass without any additional cost so for example this pass is not available for other parts of Hokkaido so the route from hokkaido's saporo to Asaka doesn't shows up but if you choose for example J Hokkaido pass by J Hokkaido that is also available on this site and in case you use that pass you can choose saporo to asahikawa and these limited Express trains like lilac and kamui comes up so there are lots of different types of the regional passes so you might want to take a look at it the only thing is all of these passes are only available for regular seats and there's no pass available for green cards for green cards you have to get on with the regular fairs and that is same for Japanese side too CH East Shinken has a special seat called granas Which is higher than green car and for some long distance route like Tokyo to sh HTO not everything but many Grand classes comes with meals and free flow of sake or alcohol drinks and the last one will be J West reservations just like the ex site I talked earlier you can make reservation for the tokaido S kushu shansen and H shansen this J West reservation allows you to make reservation for some special train that are not available to other sites and one is the sunrise ismo orto which is the only regular Night Train living from Tokyo and going to ISO and takas this train you only can make reservation from this G West reservation you can also make reservation for the connection going to hokiku of the Thunder and hok shansen which is not available at the J East reservation and you can also make a reservation for the to Trin from arama in case you make reservation for shinkansen there's no big discount like you saw on the ex site and just in case you cannot use the ex site for some reason maybe you can use this G West site to make reservation for the too Shinken but in that case you have to click this Reserve by selecting stations if you click selecting trains the to doesn't show up at the list CH West also have lots of original Regional passes for example J West s s pass is 23,000 Yen for 7 days and you can do unlimited ride on the shansen between Shin Osaka to Hakata in kushu in case you purchase the pass from the jail West site you can make reservation for your seat through their website in case you only need one way ticket from sh Osaka to the West there's also a ticket type called s Shing gansen oneway ticket and this this one is not available at the ja West official site it's available at the travel agency outside Japan and one site I found is a clook so in case you purchase one way K of the your shinen you can purchase it much cheaper than the J West official site so now let's look at the foring agency site kuk kuk is a site that offer the service that you can make reservation for all shinkansen that I talked about and there's a big Pro and cons on this grou site the only thing is for each purchase of the shate it cost a kind handling fee called fulfillment fee and this is not really a small one in case you make different reservations and especially for sever people the total of the fee will be not a small amount but there's a big benefit too in case you purchase from the clook site you can book from your own language or countes kind of page and you can probably use your credit card for sure this is because I see some comments recently that the credit card doesn't work for the ex site or I'm not sure how many people are succeeded to use the exite and not because I see lots of people who travel with exite 2 using their credit card I drop all the links to make reservation in the description so please check if you interested in it it might have been a little bit complicated topic for someone who are not interested in trains or these preparations but I hope you can imagine it to be a great exciting trip and enjoy the process of making reservation and research thank you for watching have a great trip to Japan have a great week until the next video

Channel: Tokyo Kenchan

Views: 10,849

Keywords: tokyo travel guide, itineraries in Japan, Tokyo Kenchan, travel vlogger, travel tips in Japan, Tokyo, Japan, Travel Guide, Itinerary, how to travel Japan, Tokyo travel tips, travel, shinkansen, Visit Japan, Japan Travel, shinkansen tokyo to osaka, shinkansen ticket machine, japan travel guide, bullet train, tokyo to kyoto, Shinkansen, how to get train ticket in japan, smart ex, ex, shinkansen ex, shinkansen luggage, jr west reservation, jr east reservation, ekinet

Id: E7KA5P6hawQ

Length: 26min 52sec (1612 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 12 2024