Interesting, thanks for the follow-up and info about recharging on the phone. I'll try again with the card import, but it definitely failed for me last time I tried, which, to be fair, was a few months ago; sounds like that cc linking requirement has changed.
Hi Chris- some fine print to your fine print: "if you have a physical Suica or Icoca card, you can import it into your iPhone and you won’t need a credit card" This is not true in my experience, the Suica app still requires linking to a credit card, even if you're just trying to import a physical card you already have; there'd be no way to top it up otherwise. (and it suffers from the same problem with visa cards not being accepted).
Also worth noting, "if you have a Japan Rail Pass, you can use the excellent JR online booking system" is only true if you've purchased the pass through the official website, which I found out the hard way. Here's the response I got to my repeated failures to register on the site:
"We regret to inform you that only customers who purchase on the official Japan Rail Pass website can make reservations for reserved seats online.
Interesting, thanks for the follow-up and info about recharging on the phone. I'll try again with the card import, but it definitely failed for me last time I tried, which, to be fair, was a few months ago; sounds like that cc linking requirement has changed.
Hi Chris- some fine print to your fine print: "if you have a physical Suica or Icoca card, you can import it into your iPhone and you won’t need a credit card" This is not true in my experience, the Suica app still requires linking to a credit card, even if you're just trying to import a physical card you already have; there'd be no way to top it up otherwise. (and it suffers from the same problem with visa cards not being accepted).
Also worth noting, "if you have a Japan Rail Pass, you can use the excellent JR online booking system" is only true if you've purchased the pass through the official website, which I found out the hard way. Here's the response I got to my repeated failures to register on the site:
"We regret to inform you that only customers who purchase on the official Japan Rail Pass website can make reservations for reserved seats online.
The official website is as follows.
https://japanrailpass.net"
I'd love to hear if anyone else (esp. with US credit cards) has gotten the digital suica/icoca to work.