SJ - Trains in Sweden

At first like some others in US I thought I did need a personal ID number from Sweden. However, I reached out in the app chat and she was able to set me up with an account and emailed me a link to finish account creation. If you make your first booking on the website and click the button to remember or save the card you are using, you can also make purchases in the app as an American. I was also able to click the button to add a 2nd payment card later. I was not so lucky with the Volvo On Demand app.😢

So the app works great, except for two critical flaws. The first is that it doesn’t let you use a foreign phone number. Why have this in the US App Store if you can’t have foreign phone numbers? The second flaw is that I can’t pay for a ticket. I’ve tried 4 US-issued credit cards and one Swedish-issued card. None worked. And for the US cards, my credit card companies said they didn’t even get the payment request so it wasn’t a matter of the cards getting declined. The SJ system didn’t even make the payment request. The other option is to use Swish to pay. Since you need a Swedish bank account, that’s not a viable payment option for most people outside Sweden. Would love to use the app if I could actually buy a ticket with it 😊

SJ have done a great job with this app. Booking and paying are a breeze. Travel mode is also very well done - it tells you how much time is left before having to board or get off. I love Swedish trains and this app just makes the whole experience that much better.