Preparing for a long trip is incredibly stressful. When we were prepping everything to leave for Bangkok on a one-way flight, we put off loading up our Suica Card for the Tokyo metro (we had a 23 hour layover there) until the night before.
This was a massive mistake (yes, yes, procrastinating is bade, we know), and easily cost us a few hours of precious time during our layover in Tokyo.
In response to all of the issues we experienced with getting our Suica Card to work, we decided to put together a comprehensive guide on how to get your Suica Card to work so you can use the metro in Tokyo, Japan.
Make sure to read this guide so you don’t make the same mistakes that we did, and actually get to enjoy the maximum amount of time in Tokyo.
Suica Card does NOT accept Visa
We learned this the hard way. As of August 2023, it is currently impossible to get your Suica Card to work if you can only load it up with a Visa. We tried several different cards under several different people’s names, but nothing worked until we switched over to my Mastercard.
This is a real bummer for those of you book all of your travel related things on a Visa (Chase Sapphire members, I’m looking at you), and something to definitely consider before flying out to Japan.
If you don’t have a Mastercard available, you’re going to need to find one before loading up your Suica Card. Otherwise, you’re going to be stuck trying to buy physical tickets at the stations, which seemed fairly difficult given the English language levels throughout Japan.
Everybody in your group needs their own Suica Card
Our plan heading into Tokyo was to just get one Suica Card and have share it. Unfortunately, this does not work. Every single member of your party is going to need their own card, even the kids.
The Suica Card currently works on a “punch in, punch out” system where you tap your card (or phone) against the turnstile to punch in, and then do the same on your way out. This automatically calculates your fare, and deducts it from your available balance.
While this is super convenient, it also leaves a lot of room for error. The turnstile at the airport was malfunctioning, so Jia was able to get through the first check-point, but when we tried to transfer to a new line she got stuck on the other side.
Nothing we did would work, and eventually we had to ask a guard for help after fifteen minutes of struggling. He let us pass for free thankfully, and our night continued without hiccup.
