KPT

TL;DR just rambling thoughts

I was talking with a bunch of friends who do the Osaka-Nagoya-Tokyo route on the Shinkansen; they generally buy reserved tickets, up until the last few minutes before departure, and were saying about how the reserved sections on the Nozomi generally leave completely full in both directions.

Coming home late at night from Nagoya, I've recently sprung for the Green car just to get a seat, but notice that the cars are usually about 25% full while the normal seats are completely sold out. Seems a bit wasteful; maybe there should be an elite program? Perhaps if you're a View card holder and you're a frequent customer, maybe you can get a discounted Green car seat purchase? (It would have to be clear from the seat selection screen in case you're traveling with others)

armagebedar

As far as the JR companies are concerned, there is no competition on most of their shinkansen routes (evident by the lack of deep-discount fares). Each JR company has a regional monopoly, so they have no need to fear other long-distance railway operators in their areas of operation (unlike, say, parts of Europe). As a matter of fact, the airlines are the ones who are threatened by the shinkansen. JAL and ANA are both running campaigns and have dropped fares on their Haneda-Hokuriku routes to compete with the shinkansen. LCCs are obviously cheaper than both the legacies and JR, but they offer a bare-bones experience (and no FFP). The only other competition is long-distance buses, but they are going after a low-value, highly-price-sensitive segment.

All of these result in very little need on the part of railway operators for any kind of frequent rider program. That being said, there is an "elite program" for members of JR Central's Express Yoyaku service allowing members to accrue points for use as upgrades to the Green Car. I believe JR East has something similar.

Oh, and I agree that having so many Green Car seats left unfilled is a waste, but by standardizing the shinkansen trainsets, JR can achieve greater efficiencies. Unlike an aircraft, swapping a trainset out is not trivial, especially when tickets can be bought 1 minute before departure.

KPT

Thanks for the link, the more you know ミ☆

Buy 10 R/Ts to Nagoya (or 6 R/Ts to Osaka), get one Green Car seat for free it seems. Not that great a deal, practically getting about 2% C/B per direction provided you bought just the base fare. If you buy green car seats it seems to make absolutely no difference.

acregal

This is the only real perk. If you know you'll travel a lot, you can buy 回数券 (a set of tickets - for shinkansen it's 6, IIRC) to get a discount (but sitting in the green car is a bit better - the company pays for tickets, the traveler can sit in the green car).

There are also a ton of people traveling on random JR lines and spending a ton of cash. I looked and I got reimbursed nearly 60,000 yen for travel in December (and none of that was on the shinkansen).

The trains can't be that full (and aren't IME) if your friends can get tickets a few minutes before departure. Friday evenings and Saturday mornings tend to be full but departures are so frequent it's not difficult to get a seat.

joejones

Emphasis on "most." I recall from JR West's IPO prospectus that they saw themselves in intense competition with the airlines on the Osaka-Fukuoka route. The same is probably true to a slightly lesser extent for Tokyo-Osaka (where flying offers less of a time advantage), Tokyo-Hiroshima (where the airport's inconvenience outweighs the speed of flying) and even Tokyo-Fukuoka (where flying is usually faster and cheaper but many people prefer the convenience and flexibility of the train).

msp3

Of all the JRs, JR Central has the least incentive to run any sort of loyalty program or give any discount to anyone. Their portion of the Shinkansen route makes so much economic sense nothing else quite competes in the same way.

IIRC, aren't they funding the maglev Shinkansen all by themselves?