to not want to give hotel my credit card for a £500 meal in advance

[pippala]

My daughter will be in Tokoyo with her partner over xmas.
this will be the first time in 27years we have been apart on xmas day.
we have bought them Disneyland tokoyo passes for xmas day.
she is staying at the Hyatt Regency for three nights (paid by his parents)
So as a surprise for them and with much hassle through the hyatt website I booked them in for Dinner on xmas eve.
First Hyatt wanted to charge me £25.00 to send them a gift card with £100 on it to spend!
so I decided to phone the Tokoyo restaurant direct. They asked me to scan my credit card both sides and they will charge 60,000 yen on to it for my DD and partner to spend.
I agreed to this but when I told my DH he said the credit card number should have been enough over the phone.
Then he asked how much 60,000 yen was?
Googled today and it is £500!!!!!!!!
I know it is a fine dining french restaurant, michelin 4 star but bloody hell!!
we went to the Ivy and had three courses, bottle of champagne and bottle of red and it was less than £200!
I am now going to cancel, how embarrasing!

£500 is a lot, I'm

It is Tokyo

I went at 21 and it was the best trip ever!!! Disneyland Tokyo is good but space mountain is not the same.

I was expensive though but so worth it lol

Sorry on my phone and didn't mean to press post! £500 is a lot for one meal, and if it's on your card I don't suppose they'd credit back what wasn't spent. Could you just transfer the money to your dd? I know it doesn't have the surprise element but is a much cheaper way of doing it!

I sympathize, but I just got a card through the door from some Ascot diner (albeit looking good on the pictures) inviting us for a Xmas lunch at 110GBP per head! And it is not Tokyo and it is not Hyatt and it is not dinner!!!!!!!!!!

That's Tokyo for you. If you want something fancy, you pay through the nose. And hotels are a pisstake.

OTOH you can have a fabulous meal from a hole-in-the-wall place for almost nothing.

I used to go on business and my expenses ran:

Breakfast (at hotel, mostly fresh fruit): 100 pounds
Lunch (with colleagues): 50 pounds
Dinner (by myself, hole in the wall): 10 pounds

My assistant used to have to write a note to explain!

discrete, thank you but please enlighten me, what is a hole in the wall?

You can have a fabulous meal at some nice sit down japanese restaurants for not much money at all too - as long as you stay away from the tourist places (Tips not welcome either, which is a real PITA when you have a large group and want to split the bill with everyone throwing in notes). A few years ago now, although the business restaurant prices similar to discrete's I was paying around the 10 quid mark for heaps of sashimi, got me hooked on it until DP came along and doesn't like it - thankful really as it's bloody expensive here.

I'm not too surprised that Christmas dinner there is close to that though (and I'm assuming they budgeted quite a lot for wine).

Is it not just a holding amount? So they'll reserve £500, so they'll know you have that money available, but then just charge your card the correct amount?

Still a lot of money but that way they know if they start buying champagne etc! That they'll be covered.

They are tiny restaurants - take aways or just very few tables, (and the food is served through a hole in the wall, hence they get called that) where the food is fabulous and very cheap (though each one usually only serves one or two dishes, traditional japanese food).

French restaurants in Tokyo are notoriously expensive, my fanciest meal the year we lived in Tokyo was at a training restaurant for one of the fancy ones and was about 200 quid! So not surprised at 500 for the real thing on Christmas Eve, no less.

Michelin does not have 4 stars, but last time I went to a 3-star the bill was 800 eur for 2, so the request is totally reasonable.

The Hyatt is extortionate. £100 would probably get you a cream cake in the bakery downstairs

Such a lovely though but I'm sure/know that there are better and cheaper restaurants in Tokyo.

Feel free to PM me if you get stuck trying to find somewhere.

Maybe your DD and bf would actually enjoy a local style meal somewhere which might be a lot of fun. You could give them the money to be opened only on Christmas Eve morning with a note to go and enjoy themselves and get change from £50