Grab it fast!!! The JR Rail Pass 2020 is special for foreigners in Japan

What is JR Pass?

Japan Rail Pass is very well-known among tourists since they can use to travel around Japan, from the nothern part (Hokkaido region) to the southern part (Kyushu area). JR Pass costs 29,650 JPY for 7 days. They have other choises such as 14 days long ticket. By using this pass, you can get round-trip or more than 2 times shinkansen rides and enjoy free travel with other JR lines. Unfortunately, this pass is cannot be used by Japanese or foreigners who lives in Japan.

What about the JR East Welcome Rail Pass 2020?

To support the Japanese tourism sector which is still very hard hit by Covid 19, JR Pass finally officially announced a JR pass promo that can also be enjoyed by all citizens living in Japan who have foreign passports. The promotion is called the JR EAST Welcome Rail Pass 2020, with a validity period of only 3 days at a price of 12,000 yen only. With this price, the discount for travel can reach up to more than 50%. For example, if we travel from Tokyo station to Sendai station, the round-trip shinkansen costs 22,000 yen, and we also have to pay for a local train ticket to travel to where we are going. With this promo, we only need to pay 12,000 including round-trip shinkansen tickets from to the northern part of Japan and the cost of local JR trains according to the map and line provided by JR. The drawback is that the promo is only available for a fairly short time, namely 3 days, and specifically for the Tokyo area to the eastern part of Japan.

When and Where?

This promotion will apply on the following schedule:
Start selling: Friday, 16 October 2020 – Friday, 26 February 2021
Validity period: Friday, 16 October 2020 – Friday, 28 February 2021
These are lines can be used with this JR pass:

• JR East including Rapid Transit Bus 
• Aomori Railway
• Iwate Galaxy Railway (IGR)
• Sanriku Railway
• Echigo Tokimeki Railway (from Myoko Kogen to Naoetsu)
• Shinano Railway

How to get the ticket?

Most of tourists order JR Pass online before they arrival in Japan. You can also purchase JR Pass in designated stations within Japan. How about JR EAST Welcome Rail Pass 2020? Here are the stations that you can visit to purchase the pass:

• Akita
• Hamamatsucho
• Haneda Airport Terminal 3
• Ikebukuro
• Matsumoto
• Morioka
• Nagano
• Narita Airport Terminal 1
• Narita Airport Terminal 2.3
• Niigata
• Sendai
• Shibuya
• Shinagawa
• Shinjuku
• Tokyo
• Ueno
• Yokohama

Thank you for reading!

Source: https://www.jreast.co.jp/multi/pass/welcomerailpass.html