Japapn Railpass

[Guest ___]

I'm going to be doing a panel at an anime convention on "Budget Japan: How To Travel To Japan For Less Than A Month's Manga Budget"

 

I want to touch on the JR Railpass, but in my experience, the pass never pays for itself, nor do I see any real tangable benefit to using it. (I lost money on it last year railfanning Japan for two weeks) Any ideas on how I cna word this concept on at what point does a railpass actually save money.

 

My demographic is 18-25, mostly HS and college kids who would have a hard time shelling out several hundred for a pass.

[CaptOblivious]

I think the term you are looking for is "the break-even point"—the point at which the money spent is equal to the price of the services obtained.

[alpineaustralia]

Matey - I have travelled on a JR RailPass twice and I reckon it easily paid for itself both times.

I have in my travels used a BritRail Pass (now defunct), Euraill Pass, SwissCard, JR Rail Pass and an Amtrak Rail Pass.

By far the Eurai, BritRail andl JR passes were the best value in terms of paying for themselves 

[Sushi Train]

Doesn't it depend on the exchange rate?! And how far you travel, my 2 wk pass last year cost around aud600 and we used in excess of a thousand bucks on trains.

[stevenh]

Each time I've bought a pass (1wk and 3wk) It's taken me around 3-4 return shinkansen trips to pay it off... let alone the basic transit around Osaka.

 

I suppose, if you're in Tokyo, etc... where you don't have JR covering the city then you may be shelling out for other rail companies, but I can absolutely swear that the Rail Pass is a must.

 

Then again, my friends would lose money on it, as I travel to Japan to travel the on the trains... (and see friends)

[serenityFan]

Last time I checked, the cost of a 1 week railpass is about the same as return tickets Tokyo - Osaka -Tokyo.

 

My friend (who wasn't railfanning) recently bought the railpass and he traveled Tokyo - Osaka - Hiroshima - Osaka - Tokyo within a week, so that already saved him some money.

[Sushi Train]

i wont be buying them this september as we'll be staying in tokyo most of the time other than some day tours which include the train. i will get platform passes though, lots of photos to take. :-)

[Martijn Meerts]

If you could take pictures of Tokyo Station from every possible angle and position, that'd be great =)

[Guest ___]

I tallied up the cost of the pass vs what I would've spent on rail travel in the Kanto region independently and it came out that I lost about ¥7500

[SubwayHypes]

^THen you didnt ride enough trains!!

 

Luckily i have never needed a railpass, my late grandma was addicted to buying those 50 dollar prepaid cards because she loved the pictures on them, she had hundreds and hundreds of used railpasses, and even more un used.  We still have about 500 bucks in un used raillpasses from when she died, so i still get to travel trains for free!

[Bernard]

Do the rail passes have an expiration date?

[alpineaustralia]

Within the specified time frame but only after you activate it at an authorised station

[stevenh]

You first purchase a 'transfer order' (i think that was the name) from the dealer in your foreign country and then must convert that to a Rail Pass in Japan at a proper desk (locations noted on order) withing 3 months.

[Guest ___]

^THen you didnt ride enough trains!!

 

Luckily i have never needed a railpass, my late grandma was addicted to buying those 50 dollar prepaid cards because she loved the pictures on them, she had hundreds and hundreds of used railpasses, and even more un used.   We still have about 500 bucks in un used raillpasses from when she died, so i still get to travel trains for free!

 

Actually that's pretty much all I did for 8 straight days in Tokyo.

[Guest ___]

I retract my statement about the railpass. I priced out my trip and the railpaass does make a hell of a lot o sense, and I can see how it would save me a sheep load of money.