> The most frustrating experience I had was booking a ticket online, only to get a message after confirmation: “You’ll need the physical credit card to retrieve your ticket at the station.”
Most (all?) airlines require this. In practice, it's only checked if your name differs from the name in the credit/debit card.
Other than that, the user fails to explain why booking a train is harder in Japan? They have multiple operators/lines but that's normal for a big/dense city like Tokyo.
I was never required to book a flight ticket with a physical card while booking online. And even if that's a policy, I feel like being told that before booking would be nice.
I've taken hundreds of flights in and between the USA and EU and never once had to show anyone my credit card. In a number of cases, the ticket was booked with someone else's credit card.
For (non-Schengen) international flights, I usually have to show someone my passport.
Did you mean most/all airlines in Japan?