Perhaps the endless proliferation of online discussion of how to deceive and defraud hotels out of significant corporate discounts has lead them to be more careful about verifying? I know when I went to a GH in Asia once, they requested my corporate ID badge (despite the fact that I was actually wearing a company polo with logo on it at the time ) to verify and told me flat out, online blogs and discussion has brought a ton of people trying to use this rate so we are checking everyone who uses it. Certainly Japan would be a place where I could see verification as a standard and expected course of action.