I found navigating the JR site to try to secure tickets for the sunrise express daunting. I was happy to pay a service to secure tickets on my behalf. I was optimistic that it would work out. The owner was local, responsive and wrote thoughtful and clear answers to my questions. I asked them to move forward to secure tickets for me and was thrilled to get the note back that my tickets had been secured. All systems go! But here is where the trouble started. The owner told me on March 25th that they had managed to get me tickets. I had to write back three time, on the 25th, the 27th and the 31st to inquire about payment and deliver before I got a reply. Here is their reply on the 31st of March: Apologies for the belated response -- I have been traveling. It won't happen again. We can confirm that we have prepared a Single Twin (Second Class) room for you, as well as two basic fare tickets. Regarding delivery, we offer three main options. The first is delivery by mail to your residence. In this case, we request the payment be made via bank transfer. The second is delivery by mail to a hotel you will be staying at while you're in Japan. In this case as well, we request payment by bank transfer. The third option is in-person delivery within the Tokyo area. In this case, we can meet you at your hotel, and the payment can take place with cash.The fact the owner went AWOL for a week gave me pause. Then I found the negative review on TrustPilot and thought that I better make sure that they have the tickets and that the tickets will come to me if I send the money. On April 1st I asked that the owner send me a picture of the tickets and I got this reply almost immediately: “I’m currently on vacation and away from Tokyo, and will return on April 6th. Would it be okay if I sent you the photo afterward?” Is it possible that the owner was on vacation and didn’t have access to an electronic copy? Perhaps, but not likely. Let me just add, I did not get a photo of the tickets on the 6th or any day thereafter. Given the one-week disappearing act and the inability to produce an image of the tickets, I decided that I better pick up the tickets in-person rather than rely on this owner, whose company has no public address, to mail it to my hotel in Tokyo. I wrote a second time on April 1st telling the owner that I was selecting option 3: in-person delivery within the Tokyo area. I proposed we meet at 9:15 am at the Tokyo train station on April 21st to make the exchange. Six days later, on April 6th, I got the following reply: Apologies for the delayed response. Yes, 9:15 works perfectly. Please note that since we haven’t yet received a financial commitment from you, we may need to prioritize another customer if they request and pay for the same tickets before you do. Let’s skip the fact that the owner disappeared again for almost a week and focus on the substance. I had agreed to pay them according to their terms of service-in person delivery and then they had changed the rules because they felt the exchange date (21st) and the travel date (27th) were to close together. I understand the risk that the owner is taking by securing tickets before securing the payment but changing your own payment and delivery terms in the middle of a transaction is bad business. At this point, I gave up. I hadn’t seen evidence of the tickets and the owner wasn’t sticking to the payment and deliver terms that they had presented to me. I wrote a negative review on this site. The following day, April 7th I received 5 separate emails from the owner and in the last one, the owner came forward with new option for me to get the tickets. Under the new proposal I was to make a deposit via wire transfer to them of $75 to secure the tickets and we would stick with the original in-person delivery date, time and location. The owner also asked that I remove my negative review and I obliged. Armed with the owners name and banking information I tried to wire $75 to them. My bank, like 95% of banks in the US, according to ChatGPT, requires the recipients full address. I wrote to the owner to ask for their address and I got no answer. That was on April 8th. On April 9th I wrote again and still crickets. They have gone silent again. At the end of the day, this just isn’t a reliable service. You might get the tickets (if you want to believe the other reviews that were posted between the time I took down my first negative review and before I posted this replacement negative review.) Or you might not. Three times the owner disappeared and two times the owner failed to come through on their proposed payment terms. What can I say, I didn’t lose any money but I missed out on the opportunity to secure tickets. Addendum: I will add that my trip to Japan was incredible. Everything went swimmingly. Everyone I met was kind and reliable. This owner is the exception to the rule.
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