Yokoyama from the club staff here as well.
As everyone has already explained, transportation expenses are the 5,000–10,000 yen men pay as a thank-you for the date.
An allowance is what a man pays if the relationship develops into an adult relationship (intimate). Since the club cannot get involved in the amount, please discuss and negotiate it between the two of you.
That’s the general understanding.
Maezawa from the president’s office here as well.
Regarding dates arranged by Universe Club:
There is a rule that men must give women ¥5,000–¥10,000.
I’m sorry for the confusion—the club calls this “transportation expenses.”
I’m not exactly sure why it came to be called that, but because of the name, men occasionally misunderstand and fail to give the allowance.
On one occasion, after dinner, the man invited the woman somewhere, but when she declined, it looked as though they were simply going to part ways. So, as the club had explained to her, the woman asked:
“Could I receive today’s transportation expenses?”
The man replied:
“You said you live nearby, didn’t you? Why would you need transportation expenses? That doesn’t make sense.”
The woman persisted and somehow received the transportation expenses—which are actually a form of allowance set by the club.
When we later checked with the man, he said:
“Yeah, that woman lives nearby, but she still asked me for transportation expenses. She kept insisting, so I paid her.”
I was completely stunned.
What made it worse was that this man had already been on several dates before this one, so I couldn’t help wondering whether the women he had met previously had been okay.
Naturally, we explained to him properly:
“We call it transportation expenses, but what we mean is the ¥5,000–¥10,000 amount set by the club.”
When it’s called transportation expenses, misunderstandings like this occasionally occur. There have even been times when we considered changing the name, but we couldn’t think of a better one, so it seems to have remained unchanged.
So, in the world of Universe Club:
Transportation expenses:
This is a form of allowance, set at ¥5,000–¥10,000, that the man must give the woman at the beginning of their first date.
Men are free to give ¥20,000 or ¥30,000 instead, and if a man offers that amount himself, the woman may accept it as is.
Women are not allowed to name their own amount. Saying, “I’d like ¥20,000,” for example, would violate the rules.
Allowance:
After the Universe-arranged dinner or other activity ends, the relationship becomes a matter of personal choice. In that personal relationship—whether it’s going out for drinks, visiting an aquarium, or shopping—the allowance is the amount the man and woman discuss in exchange for spending time together.
Generally, people are talking about how much the woman will receive if they enter into an adult relationship (intimate), but she is also free to say, “I’d like an allowance for going out for drinks,” or, “I’d like ¥50,000 for dinner dates from the second date onward.”
Men are also free to decide the amount. If their expectations don’t match, they simply won’t continue seeing each other.
> Is the “transportation expense” what you receive for going out to eat, while the allowance is what you receive for intimacy or out of the man’s generosity?
If by “going out to eat” you mean the dinner arranged by Universe, then yes.
From the second date onward, even if it’s just dinner, I believe it would be called an allowance.
> Regarding the transportation expenses on the first date, my understanding is that they are a request from the club.
People who properly follow the club’s requests are good people.
Someone who says, “It’s only a request, so I don’t have to do it,” is ignoring the club’s wishes and therefore cannot be considered gentlemanly.
I assume that people who read this Q&A section act in accordance with the club’s requests. Those who don’t probably don’t read it.
In the first place, it’s written in the rules.
