Japan Rail Seat Reservation

Dear Japan-guide.com,

I have the following questions that need your advise:

1) Can I hand over my Japan Rail Pass to my Japanese Friend and ask my Japanese Friend to make Seat Reservation on my behalf? Or Do I have to be there personally to make Seat Reservation?

2)Does the Validity Period of Japan Rail Pass start immediately after Reservation is done, or does it start after the first date of usage?

Thank you very much for your advise.

Best regards,

Chris Chin

Can I hand over my Japan Rail Pass to my Japanese Friend and ask my Japanese Friend to make Seat Reservation on my behalf?

I am pretty sure that you are supposed to make the reservation in person.

Does the Validity Period of Japan Rail Pass start immediately after Reservation is done, or does it start after the first date of usage?

It starts on the day you specify it to start. You specify that date at the time when you change your voucher into the actual pass.

question 2 first:
you must have started your JR pass (meaning that you must exchange the voucher bought abroad for an actual pass at a JR station and they will check our passport) before you can make a reservation.
this means that you cannot give your pass well in advance of your arrival to a friend in Japan to reserve a seat for you.

once you are in Japan you could in theory give your pass to a friend to reserve a seat for you but the JR staff may/ will ask for the passport.

I am not sure why you want to do this. I have been to Japan quite a few times and never had a problem reserving a seat, as long as it wasn't a big holiday or something like that

I had no trouble in general booking tickets when I'm across there. The only two exceptions I've seen were around the 28th Dec to 3rd January (when the queues were nuts) and over Golden week. I'll be across over the New Year period this time hence I went for the green car pass. The advice I had is that as long as I book three days or so in advance it should be OK with that...

you must have started your JR pass (meaning that you must exchange the voucher bought abroad for an actual pass at a JR station and they will check our passport) before you can make a reservation.

Slight error in this, maybe it is wording:

You must have your JR Pass (actual pass in hand after you exchange it) to make a reservation.

However the JR Pass does not have to yet be "started"( eg, the date of the JR Pass being valid or active.) The date could be a future date, as long as the reservation is for a future date that the JR Pass is "active".

Thank you all for your kind reply. The reason why I would like to book ahead is because I will be travelling in Japan from Christmas till 2 Jan 2008, which is a Peak Period for Train Travel. To avoid problems of getting seats, does it solve the problem if I spend more money to buy the Green Card?

No, the reason being is trains especially on the busy days of New Year will be booked solid, it wouldn't matter if one had a green pass or not. You'll find green pass holders standing in the unreserved section of the ordinary cars.

From what I heard though, the Green cars seem to get fully booked a little later so there is a bit more of a Window (i.e normal cars might be booked out weeks in advance whereas green cars get fully booked closer to the time). Please let me know if I'm wrong though. I guess the other issue is planning when you are going and when, plus booking your tickets as soon as possible. From what I've seen the rush seems to be to get out of Tokyo around these times, so maybe if you work your itinerary around this it might help.

From what I heard though, the Green cars seem to get fully booked a little later

I think this tends to be true, but there are certain lines where the opposite can be true. I think, for example, that green cars on hayate trains (Tohoku Shinkansen), for example, often get booked out before ordinary cars. And other trains do not have green cars at all, for example, hikari trains on the Sanyo Shinkansen.