Quick update: If you have a physical Icoca or "normal" Pasmo or Suica (ie, not a Pasmo Passport or Welcome Suica), you can import it into your Apple Wallet, as most of you know. I recently landed in Japan and imported a physical Icoca into my Apple Wallet and it works perfectly. You can easily charge it at any IC vending machine, which you'll find in any JR station and many other places. So, you don't need a MasterCard or Amex to do this. Just for info, I actually got a MasterCard from my home bank and then discovered that you cannot link that particular card to Apple Wallet (thanks, Scotia!), so if you are going to get a credit card just to get and use a digital Suica etc, at least make sure that you can link that card to your Apple Wallet. However, as you can see from my experience, if you can get to Kansai and get an Icoca, you don't need to have any credit card linked to your Apple Wallet; you can just add money to your Icoca at any IC vending machine in Japan.