My husband and 5 colleagues are traveling to work at Camp Zama for 2 weeks. The post reccomended this hotel:

http://www.odakyu-hotel.co.jp/centur...ish/index.html

I am known to this group as the travel guru (credit flyer-talk for that) so they turned to me for advice. They are all nervous about this trip as their standrad Marriott/Hilton choices don't seem to be an option.

I called the hotel last night to ask a few questions that were not answered on their English web site and the person I spoke with did not speak enough English to answer the questions. She just kept asking for the booking dates. I explained that I wasn't ready to book yet but she did not seem to understand. She then attempted to transfer me to someone who spoke more English but disconnected me. I am now a little nervous about this hotel. My main concern is that the web site says they accept foreign credit cards for rooms only. Does this mean no AmEx for restuarants, etc.? Is that common practice? I asked her sepcifically how far to Zama, she could not answer. I am having trouble finding a map in English of the area so I can visualize how far the various cities/hotels are from Zama. I am also concerned about smoking/non-smoking rooms. I've heard non-smoking rooms can be hard to obtain at Japanese hotels?

I went thru part of the booking process at Expedia, the only way I could find to book this hotel online and was surprised by how cheap it was. 80 dollars a night. Can that be right? Is it a dump? I thought lodging in Japan was very expensive.