Shinkansen smartEX App

Central Japan Railway Company

About this app

▼With the EX app, you can:
- Reserve Shinkansen seats through the app easily
- Discount for early booking
- Reserve Shinkansen seats up to 1 year in advance
- You can make as many changes as you need, free of charge, before getting on the train
- Reserve a set of Shinkansen seats and hotel rooms!
- Reserve activities, hotels and car rentals!
- Select any seat from the seat map (*reserved seats only)
- Information on services available in stations and trains
- You can log in quickly by using fingerprint authentication.
(only for compatible models)

▼ Main features
- Membership registration
- Purchase ticket/Reserve seats (time designation, train name designation, easy free seat reservation)）
- Confirm reservation
- Change and refund reservation (reducing the number of persons)
- Display purchase history and receipt
- Check, change member information
- Display QR-Ticket for boarding
- Designate or register IC card for boarding
- Service status information (Link)

▼ Notes
- Membership registration is required to use this app. For registration, personal information is required, such as member name, date of birth, and a valid credit card, etc.
- Ticket purchase (reservation) payment will be taken from the credit card registered on the account.
-- You need to register or designate IC card for public transportation (*) to travel ticketless with IC card.
(*) Kitaca, PASMO, Suica, manaca, TOICA, PiTaPa, ICOCA, Hayakaken, nimoca, SUGOCA
- You need the pickup code to pick up tickets from ticket vending machines, etc., at main stations of Tokaido Sanyo Kyushu Shinkansen, such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Shin-Osaka, Hiroshima, Hakata, Kumamoto etc.
- Please do not use this app to make a seat reservation for Japan Rail Pass.
- This service is available only in English.
- For more details on this service, please see the website.

*The email address below is for inquiries about application specifications. Please note that we cannnot answer inquiries about the service.

Ratings and reviews

The good, you save a good deal of money on smartex tickets. And you can get your ticket prior to boarding. The app works but it's a awful user experience. Issues are 1. You always get logged out every time you use the app. 2. They way the handle payments is odd, you have to get a 1 time code to change your card,none of my banks one of the largest in my country never seems to work. 3. Payments don't use the 3 digit code but rely on multi factor with your bank.

Don't use this app, it's dangerous. I signed up, selected my tickets, and then left the app without purchasing. When I tried logging in later to purchase my tickets again, my account was locked. I called the specified phone number to try to get my account unlocked, and they told me that they can't unlock overseas accounts. They have to wait for the system to unlock the account and notify me by closing my account. Absolutely useless and foreigner unfriendly.

Don't waste your time. The app won't let you register the credit card needed to use the app. I've booked many Japan hotels, tours, other trains, etc over the last couple of months, never had a credit card authorization problem anyplace else. I've spoken to Smart EX reps real time, there's no acknowledgement that they have a problem and certainly no help trying to fix the issue. Many Shinkansen routes can be booked on Klook for a fee. At least Klook works.

What’s new

▼Ver. 8.1.18
- Performance improvements