How to pay Chizu railway surcharge?

I’m trying to find the “correct” way to pay the additional fee when using a national JR Pass to ride the Super Hakuto from Kyoto to Tottori… but can’t seem to find the answer. I purchased my pass through the official JR website but when trying to use their seat reservation service I just get a message saying “you’ll have to pay extra”.

I’ve seen other people say that they just waited for an attendant to check their ticket on the train (during the Chizu portion) and they paid the fee on the spot… but there’s gotta be a way to do that ahead of time, right? Would a JR ticket office (at Kyoto Station, or any other JR station) be able to facilitate the prepayment of the surcharge? Or can I do it via a Chizu website or something like that?

The easiest method is to pay on board of the train. I am not even sure whether the JR ticket staff is able to sell you the ticket for the non-JR section, but you can try it if you want. Seems more complicated to me, though. If you do, please report back on this thread how it went.

Thanks for the confirmation about paying in-board, it’s good to know that is the default method.

Do you know how would that work if you were trying to get a reserved seat though? Would I just make a reservation via JR for the Kyoto to Kamigori segment and remain in that same seat, expecting to just pay the slightly more expensive surcharge when an attendant comes around? Or is there a chance someone else will have reserved that same seat (via Chizu) for that segment, and then they show up saying “why are you on my seat??”.

I’ll probably just use the unreserved car in the first place, but just wondering if anyone else tried for reserved seats w/ a JR Pass.

Seat reservations will allow you to remain in the same seat for the entire train journey.

Thanks for the help Uji!

I talked to a JR today and they also had no idea how to pay the Chizu surcharge ahead of time. She did however give me seat reservations for the two JR-run segments of the trip. I’ll report back if I do ever get more info on how to pre-pay before boarding.

Great! Thanks! Have a nice trip!