Hilariously, the physical cards can only be topped up at add fare machines (cash only) or ATMs (cash only).

If you go down the "add a pasmo/suica on your phone" then you get into licensing issues with the other cabal (credit card issuers): you need to use an Amex to charge it via Apple Pay (IIRC Visa is now supported, but when I tried it last week my card was declined, so... YMMV).

Assuming you’re a tourist, are you sure it’s not your bank flagging the transaction? When visiting in April I too thought it was an issue with the card when trying to reload on apple wallet, but after two cards declined, found out the transaction was flagged haha

Same experience with reloading on the physical machines. It’s quite amusing

Same card worked via Apple wallet for other transactions, and the Visa thing is a known issue historically (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255018680?sortBy=rank). A local friend confirmed the fix, but I can't seem to find any info from Apple or Visa about it.

It's working now (https://atadistance.net/2023/12/15/apple-pay-suica-visa-rech...) and has been working since ~2023. The last hurdle many face is that if you disable location services, sometimes the transaction is still blocked as they can now geofence it to just Japan with foreign bank cards.

My Visa worked just fine last time I was there.

A few years ago, while I was in Japan visiting, they ran out of SUICA cards and visitors arriving couldn't get them. Left a lot of folks in a real bind. Fortunately I had already had cards for my family- and when we left we returned them for the deposit so they could be re-used, but they had a shortage for a few years! They should have used standard NFC, but being an early adopter has its downsides I guess.

Not necessarily about being an early adopter, it's that they remained inflexible despite adopting a flexible technology.

You only need to buy it at the airport if you want a Welcome Suica. You can buy a regular Suica at any station with a multi-function machine.

The only real differences between the Welcome Suica and a regular one are the 500 yen deposit (Welcome Suica doesn't require a deposit) and the limited validity (Welcome Suica automatically expires after about a month).

Funny fact they ran out of suica chips for a long time during COVID and it was impossible to buy one for almost a year