Need it for June this year for 10 days..
any good deals around?
Any Current Deals for Japan Sim Cards?
ynot1985 on 21/03/2017 - 17:06
Comments
We got the Yokoso sim from the same seller on eBay when we went there last September. b-mobile Visitor SIM would be about the same price but with longer expiry & more data. However we went with Yokoso SIM as you do receive the SIM here in Australia so it's ready to use when you land in Japan.
You could get something like this at the airport or one of the big stores (BIC or Yodobashi). B-mobile 5gb, 3 weeks, $40 http://www.bmobile.ne.jp/english/index.html
This next part doesn't really suit your needs for such a short time but it might be a good place to mention it regardless for anyone staying longer/travelling frequently.
It's possible to get cheap data only sim cards in Japan, but it's a little bit of hassle so I wouldn't bother for a normal holiday.You need local residence to get a voice enabled sim, but before we had arranged residency my partner and I were able to get a data sim at Yodobashi. They wouldn't yet sell us a voice sim, but handed us a data sim no problem and sent us on our way.
There are a few issues with them though. Firstly the setup is all in Japanese of course. The cheap ones aren't prepaid, so you have to make sure you get one with no minimum period (next best is 6 months) and work out how to cancel them later. The sim cards can have a kinda steep initial cost (like $30). And they seem to require some sort of validation using an existing phone number. This is potentially the trickiest part unless you know someone there, but might not be a big deal
The easy way is to just do the whole thing in store. It seemed like they don't normally assist with data sim activations, luckily for us lost foreigners we were able to get one of the workers to take pity and help us with the whole setup, so google translate and bad language skills got us through the whole thing. The employee used her own phone for the activation, so that helped us out too.
If you're staying for a longer time, or a frequent traveller, the benefit is much cheaper ongoing costs. B-mobile (and Freetel) have interesting options like their 5-step plan. It's 500yen/month for 1gb, and if you go over that amount they add another 250yen/gb up to 1500yen for 5gb. Basically pay-as-you-go, making it fairly cheap to park for a while. The initial cost is 3000yen for the sim, pretty steep, but I also saw them on amazon jp for about 1000yen, with good promo plans
This is the one I went for. It took almost 2 weeks to get to me and I'm going to use it in the upcoming trip. It was also 23% off a while ago. I guess the deal is expired but might worth trying the coupon code anyways.
https://au.cheaptravelsims.com/sims/japan/softbank-japan-dat…and the deal
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/293711Got a Freetel sim a few weeks ago from Yodabashi Camera, 2450 yen 1gb for 7 days, it worked fine, Yodabashi have several shops in Tokyo. If you use it in a wifi hotspot don't forget to stop your phone uploading photos on wifi, I wasted a lot of my data on my first day by not doing this. SIMs can be recharged online (English website) within the purchased period, be it 7 or 30 days. Didn't look for a machine at the airport as I arrived late and wanted to get to the train. https://www.freetel.jp/prepaid/
This one is ok for consideration, maybe something cheaper will pop up in meantime, similarly priced to what you get in Japan I think. They used to accept offers for $5 less but seem to have removed that option now so maybe can message them asking for special price. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/JP-Mobile-SIM-Card-Prepaid-Data-S…