Shinkan-sen ticket is sold at
- JR Ticket Office
- JR Ticket Machine
- JR Website
- A ticket broker ( where you can buy and sell gift certificates、coupons、travel and concert tickets、etc.
)
Contents
How to buy at JR Ticket office
The easiest way you buy Shinkansen ticket is buying at JR Ticket office. You can buy whole types of Shinkansen tickets at Ticket office. One thing you’re really concerned about is whether selling staffs can speak English or not. Thanks to in-service education of JR, almost all the staffs can speak rudimentary English with exaggerated body language. They are honestly kind to tell us what we need to do to buy a ticket.
For all that, all the information you receive from a staff is
- Section of line (from where you get on to where you get off)
- What time you get on
- Reserved seat or non-reserved seat
If you tell a staff these three things, a staff will tell you options of trains which satisfy your conditions. If you hope to reserve a seat, a staff with search and disclose an empty seats which you can reserve. If there is a empty seat, you can buy a ticket on the spot.
You should decide which train you are going to get on with time table in advance as much as possible. That works better and faster when you order a ticket at JR Ticket office. When you reserve a seat, it is pretty much effective if you tell car numbers of Shinkansen you will get on.
How to get a Shinkansen ticket online
To tell the truth, Japanese JR online system for foreigners have made very slow progress so far which you doubt if this is advanced country. Shinkansen railway system is monopolized by JR divided into 6 sections which are JR East Japan, JR West Japan, JR Hokkaido, JR Shikoku, JR Kyushu, JR Cargo. JR doesn’t have a competitor in Shinkansen industry, thus their attitude toward this business is very amateurish and have no aspiration towards improving customer satisfaction. So you often feel it very inconvenient to reserve online.
Now, all the area you can book a ticket online from JR reservation system is between Kanto Area and Tohoku and Joetsu area. For getting a ticket to Kansai, Kyushu, Shikoku and other areas, you need to visit all the way to JR Ticket Office to buy.
In addition, basically, a ticket you bought online will be issued at JR Ticket office. If you reserve a seat online, you need to print booking confirmation and take it all the way to Ticket office to receive it. So this internet system only provides you a service to reserve a seat and make its payment but not issue printed ticket from a copy machine.
Firstly, you visit this site→ Ekinet This is the only website which you purchase Shinkansen ticket online. You just bookmark this website as you don’t loose this because it’s pretty complicated to find this page from JR Ekinet.com.
There are 7 steps to confirm your reservation online. The followings are the process chart online.
- Choose a route
- Select Train
- Choose a Window
- Seating Options
- Review
- Login
- Accepted
Choose a route
This is a top page of JR online reservation system in English. Choose a route which includes where you are going from the map in the center.
If you select the area at a top page, the screen will jump to this page. If accepting the notice written on this page, you are going to click “Search routes” in the bottom left.
Select
- Shinkansen line
- Departs
- Arrives
- Boarding date
Select Train
Select types of train in accordance with departure time.
Choose a window
Select date and a place of Ticket office which you visit to receive a ticket that you book online.If you selected, you are going to click “next” in the bottom left. Specify a pickup date in the period from two days after the reservation is made up until the day before the boarding date.
Seating options
Make seating options. You will decide following items.
- A number of passengers
- Ordinary car, Green car
- Seat location
- Weather your group can be splittable if you board on a train with a group and take seats seperately
If you decide all the things about seats, you will click “next” in the left bottom.
If you agree the notice and terms, check the check box down below and click “next”
Review
Read entire terms written on this page ,and check all the checkboxes in the left of each terms.
Login or Register
This is a login page. If you haven’t registered yet, you are going to go on to the registration page from the link under the login boxes.
If you have a international credit card listed on this page, click “next”.
This is a registration form. Fill your information in a blank and register your credit card number.
Accepted
Confirm the payment page and accept the reservation. Check your email box and print out an mail from this site and take it to a Ticket Office to collect a ticket.
Things to be noted about buying a ticket
Basically, JR wants us to buy a tick at Ticket office. Even though you buy a ticket online, you go all the way to JR Ticket office to receive a ticket. Which means, people who buy a ticket naturally concentrate to a JR Ticket office.
In addition, ticket offices you can receive a ticket you book online are limited by the options. This is also the reason that JR Ticket offices become too crowd. If you buy or receive booked ticket at JR Ticket office, you don’t choose a big primary station in Tokyo such as Shibuya, Ueno, Shinjuku but you should choose middle-sized unfamiliar station which is located in outskirt of Tokyo. You can buy a ticket very smoothly.
If do understand Japanese and can use Ekinet Japanese version, I recommend you to use this site to book a ticket. You can book whole lines of Shinkansen with this site which covers lines all over Japan in contrast to the English version.
However, there is one thing I need to tell you before you use this site, which is about the location where you receive a ticket. Basically, when you book a ticket, you have to be in the territory of JR East. Because this site is managed by JR East and JR East doesn’t issue a ticket outside the jurisdiction.
For example, if you are in Osaka, and book a ticket through this Ekinet, you need to receive a booked ticket at JR Ticket Office located Tokyo area even though you are in Kansai area. To make matter worse, JR East doesn’t restrict booking a ticket of Shinkansen line from other regions to JR East territory. For example, can you imagine that a person in Tokyo buy a one-way ticket from Osaka to Tokyo? This is really stupid system.
Assuming you live in Tokyo, when you buy a ticket through Ekinet, you should book a return ticket. This is a really contractual problem of JR companies which don’t collaborate their ticketing systems mutually. Each JR companies located in each regions has independently unique system which is not compatible with other JR companies.