EhimeAJET.com - Travel: Discount Travel

General tips / Rail Passes / Discount airfare / Ferry discounts / Cheap beds

Discount Travel in Japan

Ah Japan, the land where getting around doesn't come cheap. If you want to send money home and still manage to have a good time, try some of these tips. Accumulated through trial and error and various locations around the Ehime AJET website and on display here so you too can have a lovely holiday and still eat afterward.

General tips for travel on the cheap

The slower you go, the more money you save. Ferries are cheaper than trains. Local trains are cheaper than express trains, buses are usually cheaper than express trains, but its a toss up for local trains, and airplanes are usually more expensive than anything else going! If you can afford the time, you can probably end up affording a bit more of everything else later!
Get in with an airline's frequent flyer program. If you can trust yourself with credit cards, sign up for the card associated with their mileage program. You usually get loads of bonus miles for signing up and if you use the card in such a way that you can promptly pay off any of the purchases, you don't get so many fees.
If you travel a lot and don’t manage Japanese too well, it might be to your benefit to go through a travel agency like No. 1 Travel or JTB. If you are loyal to a particular company, they will generally reward your loyalty with extra work in looking for the cheapest options. IACE Travel is a good company that operates out of Hiroshima, but helps you book trips online and English is fine.
Think "package". If you can work things out well, you can stay in some pretty posh accommodation when you take a hotel and lodging package through a travel agency for about the same price as a cheaper hotel. Then again, do you homework ahead of time and see if its really worth it.
If you are still a student (working on a second degree while in Japan, taking distance course, etc.) you can claim a student discount on some ferries, trains and admission to certain museums and tourist attractions. Check also for foreigner discounts. Carry your Student ID and Alien card all the time and work it. Japanese for student discount is “gakkuwari”.
Travel during off-peak seasons. Summer holidays, the new year and Golden Week (last two days of April and first week of May) are the most expensive times to travel. If your contracting organization allows it, try to take off a few days before the term ends or return a few days into the term. Your schools will appreciate if you don’t miss too many classes, so its worth planning early and using your nenkyu wisely.
If you get to the train station early, try to buy your tickets from a window rather than a machine. If you are going a long distance by express train, you might be able to get a widely-advertised deal that you didn't know about because you couldn't read the posters. Curiosity does not always kill the cat, sometimes it makes the cat richer!

Rail passes

Most of these have been covered on the rail travel page, but a quick reminder that for longer distances on Shikoku in the weekends, check out the Young Weekend Card. 40 percent discount on express train travel.
During the school holidays, if you have bought it in advance, you can use the Young 18 Ticket (seishun juuhachi kippu) for unlimited travel on 5 days or between five people or any combination of the two for 11,500 yen. With advance planning you can have a nice long slow trip around the country on the cheap.
Shikoku Saihakken Kippu will give you unlimited use of local trains in Shikoku on five days within three months on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays for the bargain price of 5,500 yen. The pass is a bargain, because the daily cost of 1,100 yen is already easily covered by relatively short trips, for example, from Matsuyama to Uwajima (normally 1,750 - 2,030 yen.
The Shikoku Free Kippu covers the same area as the Shikoku Saihakken Kippu, but works on the faster tokkyu trains and is usable on three consecutive days for 15,700 yen.
Iyotetsu IC I-card For those who live in or quite close to Matsuyama, this card can be a major help. It works on all Iyotetsu private line trains, buses, street cars and taxis. Its just 10 percent savings, but its free to sign up and you never need to worry about having enough change. It even works to get drinks from the vending machines in Iyotetsu stations.

Kansai
Surutto Kansai rail pass. Good on nearly all non-JR trains in the Kansai area. This includes Osaka subways, buses and the privately owned lines that run to Nara, Kobe, Kyoto and Wakayama. Good for 2 to 4 days with the price varying depending on the length of the ticket. Its a great way to save money if you want to cram a lot of sightseeing into your Kansai trip. All that slow walking from place to place in Osaka because you dont want to drop cash every time you go through the subway is gone. Hop a train or a bus whenever you feel like it. One catch is that you have to buy a voucher for it outside Kansai and exchange it for the actual ticket at a stationmasters office in one of the larger private line stations or at the airport. The ferry terminal had never seen one before when I asked, so definitely head for a larger train station.

Kyushu

Discount Airfare

Check the air travel page for detailed info, but timing counts when you buy your air tickets in Japan.
Again, if you go through a travel agency, check for package deals.

Try to fly in non-peak times: weekends and holidays are more expensive.

Book in advance, but not too much. Domestic air tickets are only on sale two months in advance of the departure date, if you get in on the first day available, you can save big and guarantee that you get your ticket, even for busy holiday travel.

For international flights, you can book as far in advance as you want. You can also use most online discount ticket search services as international travel allows for E-tickets and you don't have to have them mailed to you.

Ferry discounts

Return tickets are usually cheaper than one-way. In the case of the Orange Ferry company, a return ticket will save you 30 percent! Unfortunately, you can only use one type of discount at a time. If you try to pile up a student discount on top of a return ticket, you will likely only be able to get the better price of the two, not the combined discount.

Cheap beds

Cheaper placest to sleep in other cities as suggested by Ehime ALTs. No gurantees and no endorsements made other than someone stayed there and suggested it to the webmaster. Consequently, if you are an Ehime ALT and want to suggest a place to stay on the cheap, contact the webmaster.

Hiroshima
Hotel Active: Single rooms from 5,980 yen. 082-212-0001. Online reservation in Japanese only. Access map on website.

Osaka
Chuo Hotel: Single rooms from 2,600 yen. 06-6647-7561. Online reservation in English. Access maps on website.
Hotel Kinki: Single rooms from 4,500 yen. 06-6312-9117. Online reservation in English. Access maps on website.

Matsuyama
Capsule Hotel: Beds from 2,800 yen. Reservations not necessary, but useful during high periods. 089-089-945-7089 .
Hotel Abis: Single rooms from 4,980. 089-998-6000. Online reservation in Japanese only.
Toyoko Inn: Single rooms for 3,900 yen. 089-941-1045. Internet reservation in English.