Any 8000ish yen ryokans near Tokyo?

As I said pre-2010, before I knew about the politics and before there were as many hotel options and before I was as picky, I stayed at APAs. The rooms are small and dingy. For just a little more you can have something much much much nicer, even if the politics don't bother you. In general, you will do better someplace like Ueno or Gotanda or even Ikebukuro for a hotel room vs. Tokyo Station, Shinjuku and Shibuya. I stayed at the Karaska Premier when it first opened for 17,600 yen. I want to say the room was nice, but mine was a little close to the expressway. I think it included breakfast. It definitely included a cup of wine at night and a lot of snacks of varying quality. My daughter liked the snacks. In February 2020, right before Covid, I paid about 20,000 yen per night for a junior suite at the Royal Park Shiodome. It was huge and had a great views.

Good luck!

The OP now has an upper range that is completely compatible with finding suitable hotel rooms in Tokyo, so the trick is how to find them. Unfortunately, I donft have any real secrets. In my case it has always boiled down to exhaustive searching. I use a variety of booking sites to locate possible deals. I never book a room if the room size and bed size are not clearly stated, and I never book a room for two without seeing photographic evidence that they donft have the double bed shoved up against the wall (something I find unacceptable), or else I book a twin. Also, I never book rooms that donft have an easy cancellation policy. It is completely unnecessary to settle for a rate that requires online prepayment in advance or has a cancellation period of more than a day or two. How much of the rate they will charge if you are unable to cancel in time is also important. It should just be one night, and not the total for the full stay. These conditions do make it harder to find rooms, of course. If you donft have a lot of time to devote to searching, then you will probably just have to pay morec

If I have one practical suggestion it would be to make sure you know what the hotel is charging for each specific night of a multiple night stay. (Some booking sites do not break it down, but just give a total, which annoys me no end.) Some hotels have a completely outrageous upcharge for weekend nights, especially Saturdays. It is not at all uncommon for them to charge double or even triple rates, for Saturdays. So you might be able to get a real bargain on weeknights but it gets ruined if you include a Saturday. I often tweak my itinerary a little to avoid staying in Tokyo on weekends, when I can (it isnft always possible).

Another important point is the obvious one of not limiting the location to the most popular station areas. But that is not to say that location is unimportant. Consider how far the hotel is from the closest station(s), and what train or subway lines are served. Among other things, how do you plan to get around in Tokyo, and where do you plan to go? Generally speaking, wasting a lot of time on inconvenient transit isnft worth the tradeoff of getting a cheaper room rate, and you can burn through a lot of yen on transit if you havenft thought ahead a little.

I have no idea what will happen with hotel pricing after Japan reopens to tourism. My guess is that there will be some pretty good bargains for the first year or so, but current and near-term prices are just pie in the sky. Itfs not even worth the time looking at them, in my opinion.

Very good points there Kim, and everyone else as well, thanks for your inputs.
So basically I have learnt a few things already, chiefly that I am not really likely to find much better rates in Yokohama/suburbs, so might as well keep looking at Tokyo.
Might I ask, besides Asakusa and Ueno, what are the generally "cheaper" areas to look into that are within yamanote/major metro lines?
Right now I am mainly looking at Asakusa and Ueno. Are Odaiba, Akihabara and Ikebukuro likely to be relatively good value, or you know any I should add to my search list? Again looking mainly at the 3 to 4 star range, approx 15000yen solo 20000yen for two.

Hi again,

First of all, you can't pinpoint an accommodation now, because prices vary not only among seasons but also specific dates, and you never know if someone starts a campaign.

And I recon that, at this point, you probably want to enjoy the process of finding out what your options are and dreaming about your near future, as opposed to deciding one specific hotel.

What I typically do in those situations is to just Google something like "accommodation tokyo" which would lead me to a map full of prices. Then I'd just start clicking every option I get. Nothing is hidden. All legal accommodation is on the map, unless you're looking for things like Air B&B.

I can jump (or Google again) to official websites of each accommodation, which would give me a better picture on what kind of rooms, meals and services they provide. I can Google Street View to get a better view of the location.

The most fun I'd have is by reading reviews. I usually start by reading the reviews giving worst ratings, so that I could learn what risks I can expect. If the risks have little to do with my needs, then I can deal with it. For example, a viewer might say that the accommodation is too far from the train station. But what if I don't mind walking?

You have plenty of time now. By the time you'd be allowed to travel, you'd become an expert on your destination. Have fun studying!

Some very good suggestions from Uco, as always.

I stayed at Asakusa once, Ikebukuro once, and Ueno once but didn't find any of the hotels to be particularly recommendable, and in general haven't ever seen much in these places that excited me. But I continue to include them in search results and probably always will. I don't think it's a simple matter of looking in "cheaper" districts or neighborhoods, though. I would essentially rule out Shinjuku and Shibuya and possibly Tokyo Station, although you never know... But beyond that, a fair number of stations on the Yamanote line or Chuo/Sobu line have decent hotels nearby that often have good deals. Or if you go a little outside the Yamanote line there are some good places.

If you identify some candidate properties that look good to you, you can put the names out there and people might respond, or you can sort through reviews. I don't like to name my own favorite hotels for a number of reasons (among other things, sometimes troll-like individuals make ill-informed, disparaging remarks that could negatively affect the business of these places, some of which are small operations and can't really afford to be trashed online). But I have seen plenty of posts in which people recommend specific hotels.

Odaiba is inconvenient but there are a couple of nice hotels out there that are forced to discount heavily on weekdays, and I have had some very enjoyable stays at both of them. Very large, nicely appointed rooms with good views. There are also some newish business hotels out there that might possibly be good. The location is regularly panned by the "experts," but it all depends on what you are looking for. Personally, I wouldn't make Odaiba my home base for a multiple-night stay of any great length, but I would consider staying there again for a night or two. The Yurikamome line, one of the main ways to get out there, is kind of pricey. It's a fun ride, but the novelty wears off pretty fast.

I find Odaiba has great rates for higher end properties. The Grand Hilton and Grand Nikko consistently have much lower rates for much larger rooms than the same rooms would cost in Tokyo proper, but don't underestimate the cost of getting off Odaiba every single day. I've stayed at the Trusty (2010) and the Washington. I thought the Washington was a little dingy but nicer than an APA.

And yes, Ikebukuro is cheaper than Shinjuku, consistently, Gotanda is cheaper than Shinagawa, Hamamatsucho is cheaper than Shimbashi and Ueno is cheaper than Tokyo Station.

I use a combo of booking sites and looking at the hotel's individual websites. I got my great deal on the Royal Park Shiodome on their actual website. I also got a better deal on the Candeo Kashihara website than I saw on any congregate website. I do use Booking a lot, I like that they include all taxes in the prices. I've also used Rakuten. A friend loved Jalan. I use to use Japanican a lot, but stopped when I restarted going to Japan in 2016 because other sites has better rates. I have used a few website aggregators.

@Kim - I have no idea what will happen with hotel pricing after Japan reopens to tourism.
You might be surprised that Japan tourism is charging ahead currently, but with domestic tourists and they make up the bulk of the market anyway. While there are the occasional cheaper deals around (specials and short term deals - those always pop up), you might not see lots of "bargains" once borders reopen just because there are international tourists on the scene. I have been travelling roughly once/month this year and have seen some huge prices for places that would normally be priced much lower because there is still some quite high demand and definitely there are places that are very busy.
For many of the destinations pricing is much the same as pre-pandemic - a lot of hotels are just holding prices because they still have their regular domestic guests. Some bookings I did for November (Kyoto and Tokyo rooms) I'm paying full/regular price - no slashed rates there, and that was considering many different properties for that trip.

Thatfs interesting about current pricing. I would have expected a lot of price-cutting by places struggling to survive. I didnft realize domestic tourism was soldiering on there, but that is great news. I would hate to see a lot of properties go out of business because of a period of extended low occupancy. Kyoto in particular had seemingly become overbuilt, and during the off-season when I go I was seeing bargains galore there in the last few years, pre-pandemic. I had somehow gotten the impression that major tourist venues in places such as Kyoto are much less crowded than usual. That said, I wouldnft particularly expect to find any bargains in Kyoto during November and December because of koyo.

Along with many others, I am hoping that by next spring the pandemic will be largely over and air travel to Japan will be more or less back to normal. And then, Ifll eagerly await the Rakuten Spring Super Sale (and Coupon Matsuri!!) and hope to make out at least as well as in the pastc