With over 200 nights in Marriotts least year, I have five times left something in my hotel room: 1) a phone charger at a Fairfield Inn in Denver, 2) another phone charger in ???, 3) a set of very nice headphones in a Full-Service in Pueblo, CO, 4) a set of push-up bars in a Courtyard in Ft. Meyers, and 5) some nutritional supplements in a Full-Service in Albuquerque.

Resolutions for each: 1) I checked back in to the hotel the following week and they didn't have my charger, but a very similar one that someone else had left behind and they gave that one to me; 2)Never bothered; 3) I called back less than a week after departure and they didn't have them - I pleaded my case that I know I left them there and that the housekeeper must have taken them (they were sitting out in plain site - the housekeeper surely couldn't have overlooked them, even though I did at 4a trying to catch a plane out of DEN). Of the numerous times I called, I had one front-desk agent let me know that the hotel could file an insurance claim and then they could reimburse me, but that turned out to not be true. I was upset with both the hotel housekeeper for stealing my property, and with myself for leaving it behind.; 4) I contacted the hotel a couple weeks after departure and they FedEx'd my push-ups bars back to me next day at their own cost - I thought that very kind. (It's a corporate property - I wonder if that has anything to do with it). 5) I do want my supplements back, but I've never taken the time to call and request them - I don't want them back enough, I suppose. (And in the time it took me to write this, I probably could have called them - hmmm...)

I'd like it if they called me to ask about property I left behind, but where would they draw the line as to what they'll call you about? What if I left an address I wrote on a napkin? Or a folder filled with scribblings? Or some $10 sunglasses that I bought because I left my good ones at home? Or... You know what I mean? I think it's less about protecting sneaky behavior and more about avoiding the dilemma of having to decide what is valuable and what isn't. What if they did have a policy of contacting customers for abandoned property, and you left something behind, the housekeeper thought it wasn't valuable and then threw it away. There might be legal precedence for action against the hotel, right?

I wish they'd contact me, but I wouldn't expect them to.