[pyre]

> so the next time I travel in the west (soon) is going to be an adventure...

Well, there are pre-paid credit cards. You could always try those, but IIRC some hotels refuse to take them.

It's also easier for the hotel to just charge extra to the credit card than to track down the person and possibly send the debt to collections. I've personally witnessed (while working for a hotel/casino) people get charged for things that they took from the room (robes, towels, etc) on the day that they checked out. At that point, the hotel already has the money, and dealing with the charges is the customer's problem. If they just took down information, then they have to spend time chasing down the customer to get them to pay the extra bill. From what I know of Japanese culture, delinquent customers are probably not as much of a problem as they are in (e.g.) the US.

While I can understand how much harder it is for hotel patrons without credit cards, hopefully you can also see it from the hotel's perspective when dealing with "bad faith" customers.