Originally Posted by
Grace B
I am thinking about buying a 3-day JR railpass for Southern Kyusu, as I will be spending a few days in Miyazaki in mid-August.
I was planning to make seat reservations for a few Limited Express / Shinkansen trains, but given that this is high season, would this plan likely be successful, as I won't be able to make the reservations until the day before travel.
If I can't make the seat reservations, due the trains being full, the value of the railpass would be severley diminished.
What thoughts?
You can still ride on unreserved seats which are only a few hundred yen cheaper than reserved seats (for paid tickets). The rail pass is probably still good value even if you always take unreserved seats.
Originally Posted by
Agneisse
At the risk of sounding cheap but I promise I am just interested in the technicalities: Would it be possible to buy the seat reservation (to guarantee a seat) and then some time later (but well before the Joyful Train departs) present oneself at the ticket counter armed with the JR Pass to get a refund of the seat cost while keeping/transferring the seat under the JR pass? My reading of the JR East website suggests that seat reservation fees are mostly refundable if canceled more than a day in advance but sometimes the translated information does not always match with reality.
Technically it probably would work, however in most cases the refund fee is 340 yen which would negate most or all of the savings from a 330-530 yen seat reservation.