So I live in Yokohama and take the keikyu line going to shinagawa and then norikae to JR line going to work using my iC card. During the summer vacation I went to visit my home country and rode a Narita express from shinagawa going to the airport. Now since I use the keikyu line going to shinagawa, after I passed through the keikyu exit gate I went straight ahead to the Narita express platform which is still inside the shinagawa station. When I arrived at the airport I just gave my ticket to the station manager and passed through the gate.
When I came back and tried to pass through a JR line gate because I’d like to take the sky access line my IC card failed. Should I have passed through the shinagawa JR line exit gate first before going to the Narita express platform?
3 comments
13 seconds talking to a station attendant would fix any problems with your IC Card.
But it looks like you never tapped out of a JR station, so you’ve errored out. You’re supposed to use the normal gates, not the Transfer gates if you’re using a different ticket.
It sounds like you passed through the transfer gate at Shinagawa station using your IC card, rather than exiting the Keikyu area with your IC card and then entering the JR area with your Narita Express paper ticket, and once you arrived at the airport, you exited using only your ticket.
In this case, your IC card thinks it is still in transit, which is why you weren’t able to enter the gate when you returned. If you go to the manned ticket gate and explain what happened, they’ll be able to quickly reset your card. You might want to bring your Narita Express ticket receipt as well if you still have it — depending on whether you bought a “base fare + limited express fare” ticket or a “limited express fare only” ticket, they may want to deduct the base fare from Shinagawa to Narita Airport from your IC card balance.
In the future, you can purchase the Narita Express “limited express fare only” from [Eki-net](https://www.eki-net.com/personal/top/index) and pay the base fare with your IC card — you’ll get a 35% ticketless discount on the limited express fare, and you can use your IC card the whole way without worrying about paper tickets.
You entered the station with IC card, but did not exit with your IC card at all, so it had an incomplete trip.