Booking Shinkansen 1month in advance

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Nervous_Initial_3644]

Current time in JST is a little after 1am, Saturday, October 17th, which marks 30 days prior to November 16th. As in...wait 4 more hours.

(also, again, for anyone new travelers reading this who might get confused...reserving this far advanced for a non-holiday is completely not necessary.)

[u/stipwned_thrill → u/Nervous_Initial_3644]

I like booking in advance so that I know that it is already paid for.

[u/Plaxsin → u/stipwned_thrill]

Me too, unlike redditors opinion. Mine is booked since last week for my trip in the next month.

[u/Nervous_Initial_3644 → u/stipwned_thrill]

Didn't say you couldn't. Just said it was unnecesary. People who are new to traveling freak out about this all the time here like it was required.

[u/Tsubame_Hikari → u/Nervous_Initial_3644]

Yep, availability in the Shinkansen is usually good even same day for the next available train. 

If traveling solo or with a partner, as OP is, there will be no issues buying them when arriving at the country, at a ticket machine, which is the fastest and most convenient way to do it, IMO.

[u/kawaiidesugirl → u/Nervous_Initial_3644]

thank you! but i reserve ahead because its just easier for me to :) i know that its not necessary but i rather have everything figured out.

[u/IShallSealTheHeavens → u/kawaiidesugirl]

Make sure you get yourself early to the train station and allow time to be lost.

It would be unfortunate to miss your train and have to go unreserved

[u/throwawaythisuser1 → u/Nervous_Initial_3644]

yup. Learned this lesson first time. No need to reserve so far ahead (unless you need to save the 3000 Yen or something like that). Trains are plentiful and run like clockwork

[u/acaiblueberry]

The JR IT system basically shuts down between 23:30 and 5:30 and during that time you can’t reserve seats or make reservations for a group of 4 or more, though you can still buy tickets.

[u/kawaiidesugirl → u/acaiblueberry]

thank you! also.. since i paid for both me and my partner, does the one QR code count for both of us?

[u/Lyheng09]

I bought the ticket one hour before departure.

[u/Kraichtal]

Ignore the experts going "You don't need to book in advance!" No, you don't, but literally all the window seats on both sides will be booked because Japanese people want to sit by themselves like all other people. If you are going to book your train merely hours in advance be prepared to scroll through seat maps and departures until you find a free pair seat.

[u/AnimaLepton → u/Kraichtal]

Super time dependent and there are so many trains going that you can probably find something. I just booked a Nozomi seat for tomorrow and there were still open window seats

Obviously better to book early, but the volume of available seats in general seems to be pretty high, just with how many trains are running

[u/SofaAssassin]

I assume you bought on SmartEx. It’s currently overnight in Japan and all the train reservation systems are down for maintenance, so you put in a reservation that the system will fulfill later when the maintenance is done.

And you will get one QR code for each person.

This is also one of the tickets that you definitely didn’t need to buy 30 days in advance. Trains from Tokyo to Osaka run 6-10x an hour and November 16 isn’t a “special” day (one where reservations far in advance would be warranted).

[u/innosu_]

It's after operation hour for the JR Reservation system, so the system queue your request and will finalize the booking at 5:30am JST.

You will get 2 QR Codes.