RetireJapan

Any frequent Shinkansen travelers here? Silly me, I thought that my Smart EX app was the clever way to book Shinkansen tickets because I could do it all conveniently in the comfort of English on my iPhone. But my Japanese friend told me that he registered for an EX account, had to provide his residence address, and he can reserve in advance with significant discounts. I did a bit of research and came across エクスプレス予約 (Express Yoyaku) and プラスEX (Plus EX). Perhaps Smart Ex is not that "smart" after all!

Any thoughts on what is the optimum solution? I'm based in Kansai FYI. Thanks!

I have been an Express予約 member for maybe 10 years now. It’s been great. I have yet to find a more convenient or cheaper system. (By the way the 予約plus option will disappear from September.)
You should be able to regularly save around ¥800~1000 one way from Osaka to Tokyo, with potentially greater savings if you can travel in off peak times, go in a group of 2 or more, or book 21 days minimum in advance. You can also score larger discounts in the green car, and at rare times for the same price as regular carriage seats. That’s really cool.
The freedom to reserve or change trains on your phone is incredibly useful but I have found a couple of caveats. Firstly, changing your train booking too close to original time (such as within 15 minutes of departure) seems to confuse the system. I have not had much luck and just stuck to my original train.Secondly, changing bookings means you lose any larger discounts such as 21 day advance booking that would have applied. Worthwhile if you can head home a few hours early but questionable if it’s only 15 minutes early.
Definitely recommended if you use Shinkansen fairly regularly.

Wow, perfect! This is exactly what I needed to know! Thank you so much for the information!

By the way, does one need to have the J-WEST or JR Tokai Express card to be a member? Any thoughts on that? If my quick calculations are correct, it seems like the J-WEST Gold card only makes financial sense if one spends more than ¥900,000/year on JR tickets, which seems like a lot.

At the time I joined, you had no choice but to get a JR credit card but now it seems they accept certain other cards, the link is contained in the link below (I tried copying the list but that didn’t work). I never looked into the gold card myself as I am not such a regular user. Cheers!
<https://jr-central.co.jp/ex/point/smart-difference/>