JR West Celebrates 1st Anniversary of WESTER Points with Over 7.5 Million Members

JR West has started the “Yay! \1st Anniversary Festival/ WESTER Points Lottery” campaign on January 31 to celebrate the first anniversary of the service launch of its group common point system, WESTER Points, on March 7.

WESTER Points was launched on March 7, 2023. For every 110 yen spent on train fares or shopping at JR West Group stores, members earn one point, which can be redeemed starting from one yen per point. Currently, the membership has exceeded 7.5 million people, and according to Norihito Tamura, head of the WESTER-X project in JR West’s Digital Solution Division, the expansion is “as expected”.

▲Mr. Norihito Tamura, Head of the Digital Solution Division, WESTER-X Project, JR West

For the campaign, lotteries that customers can draw using 100 or 1,000 WESTER Points have been prepared, with guaranteed prizes. The 100-point lottery offers prizes worth up to 10,000 yen, and the 1,000-point lottery offers prizes worth up to 100,000 yen.

Some examples of prizes include “LUCUA Osaka shopping vouchers worth 10,000 yen”, “Japan Travel gift travel cards worth 3,000 yen”, “ICOCA 20th Anniversary ICO-chan plushies” for the 100-point lottery. For the 1,000-point lottery, prizes include “LUCUA Osaka shopping vouchers worth 100,000 yen”, “Hotel Granvia Kyoto pair overnight stay vouchers”, “Panasonic Nanocare dryer” and more.

The campaign will run until February 29. During the campaign period, customers can draw the 100-point lottery up to three times per person and the 1,000-point lottery once per person.

At the campaign launch conference held in Osaka City, comedian Sunshine Ikezaki, who has been appointed as the campaign character, attended. Ikezaki made a spectacular entrance by tearing up a panel featuring his campaign visuals and approached the press cameras closely, shouting “WESTER Points! Yay!” to promote the campaign.

The validity period of WESTER Points is until the end of the fiscal year following the year the points are earned, so points accumulated at the start of the service will soon reach their expiration date. Mr. Tamura encourages those who have not yet used their points to take this opportunity to do so, seeing the campaign as a chance to create an incentive for utilizing their points.