JR East: Suica sales are coming back with full force.
When traveling in Japan, a Suica card is one of the most useful things you can getOriginally designed as a prepaid card for the use of East Japan Railway Company/JR East On trains, Suica has become Japan’s most widely used electronic payment method and is accepted at a wide variety of vending machines, shops and restaurants. Being able to make your purchases with a simple tap of your Suica card will save you tons of time and hassle and allow you and your travel companions to get back to sightseeing instead of fumbling with yen notes and coins you may not be used to.
Getting a Suica card used to be a breeze, as you could buy them from the ticket machines at almost every JR East station. Unfortunately, that changed last year when the global semiconductor shortage caused JR East to suspend general sales of Suica cards indefinitely.
More than a year has passed since then, but there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel. JR East expects reintroduce the unrestricted sale of Suica cards next autumn.
It wasn’t completely impossible to get a Suica card during the general sales suspension, but only for people in certain special situations. Sales of Suica cards for children and people with disabilities continued as normal. More expensive Suica card rail passes that include travel on a set route between two specific stations are also still available. For overseas travelers, a special Suica for foreign tourists, the Welcome Suica, is also still available. However, it can only be used for 28 days and is only available at Narita and Haneda airports and select major stations in the Tokyo area.
But starting this fall, JR East plans to be able to offer Suica cards without restrictions. The company also plans to expand the availability of Welcome Suica cards to a larger number of its Ekitabi Concierge tourism counters in stations. General sales of Pasmo, eastern Japan’s other major prepaid card for train, shopping and restaurant payments, meanwhile remain suspended. But it’s good to know that at least one option is coming back with a vengeance.
Source: Tokyo Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun
Upper image ©SoraNews24
● Would you like to be informed about the latest articles from SoraNews24 as soon as they are published? Follow us on Facebook and Þjórsárden!
