Bit of an emergency but we put in a JR pass into the machine to enter the station in Tokyo. We’ve done it many times before. This time however it took the card and did not return it on the other side.
We’ve read the another pass cannot be reissued and all. But we also did not do anything wrong. Another person in our group used their JR pass in the same machine and it returned their pass.
Is there anything we can do? The pass was not set to expire until 4 days or so.
[Edit] Thanks all. In the end, we got to Shin-Osaka and we talked to the fare adjustment office. He made the person pay to leave the station which was the full price from Tokyo to Osaka. The office repeated that no JR pass replacement can be issued. They’ll have to buy single rides or something.
12 comments
Get the staff to open up the machine. It’s gotta be in there somewhere.
The station attendant should have been able to open the gate arm for you and retrieve the pass for you. Gate at Ueno ate my JR pass just last month. If you bring a faulty JR pass to a JR travel center they can replace it for you (aka if it’s no longer scanning properly)
Don’t know what can be done if you no longer have it in your possession though
The only thing you could possibly do would be to return to the exact entrance, identify the exact gate, and ask an attendant to open it to retrieve your JR Pass. They will not reissue a JR Pass, since they can’t possibly know if you’re lying to get a second one.
In the future, you need to address this immediately when it happens. Staff are constantly watching the gates, so you can simply signal someone to come over and open the gate. It takes only a minute or two. I’ve had gates eat my ticket once or twice, and it’s easy to resolve in the moment.
You are going to have to pay now. You should have stopped and gotten the attention of an attendant and you would have gotten your JR pass back easily. But by just leaving it, you won’t be able to retrieve it now.
I’d honestly say it would be worth it to go back and have them retrieve for this person. That’s a lot of money to just let go.
Hi! I haven’t had to use a JR Pass in years but have a reservation coming up. I am used to the old stamped cardboard passes.
Are JR pases now issued as an IC card?
That’s what happened to me. The attendant came right away and opened the machine and gave me the ticket back. I then approached the ticket booth to show them my JR pass since it kept on getting stuck.
SoLast month, I was listening to a lady at the JR counter tell someone in front of me. LOSSES NOT OK, but If the machine eats your Pass, have an attendant take it out and bring the remains to the JR Counter and they can reissue.
Så kol
Had this happen to me before. It literally takes 2 minutes for somone at the office beside the ticket gates to rock up with a set of keys, stop the machine, open it up and take out the damaged ticket. If you had waited and asked, you would have got your jr pass back.
There’s absolutely no chance you’re getting the pass reissued. They make it crystal clear multiple times that they don’t reissue JR passes.
The time to act was the moment the ticket got stuck in the machine. The station attendants can open the gate and retrieve a jammed ticket in less than 5min. Tokyo to Shin Osaka is literally the most popular bullet train route. Even if you missed that train you could have easily hopped on the next one in less than 30min.
If the pass doesn’t work anymore they will reissue. But stuck in a gate… should have called an attendant over