Tokyo, October 29: The JAL Group, Japan’s biggest air transport group, and JR East, Japan’s major railway company, based in Tokyo, will start accepting applications for their new joint smart card ‘’JALCARD SUICA’’ from December 1^st. The plan to launch the new card was first announced on April 21, 2004.

The new card is a new credit and electronic money card created by combining the JAL Group’s JALCARD and the JR East ‘’View Suica’’ credit and electronic money card.. Applications for the new card open on December 1^st via the JAL Card and JR East home pages, JAL Group sales offices and airport counters and JR East View Plaza sales offices. New cards will be delivered effective in early January 2005.

The new card will provide a wide range of interchangeable benefits for domestic air and rail users. Cardholders will be able to use the card to earn flight miles, as a credit card and to pay for rail transport through an IC stored fare function. When using it as a credit card to buy rail fares, ‘’JALCARD SUICA’’ can accumulate JR East ‘’Thanks Points’’ which can be used to credit future rail travel or converted to air miles in the JAL Mileage Bank (JMB), the airline’s frequent flyer programme (FFP).

From February 2005 JALCARD SUICA cardholders will be able to use the card for JAL’s new automated ticket-less ‘’Touch and Go’’ check-in service that eliminates the need for tickets or boarding passes.. This new service will start at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and will later be installed at other domestic airports in Japan.

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