writerguyfl

You obviously missed this...

I spent well over a decade working in hotel operation and sales. That was followed by several years in the Central Reservations office of a chain. And then I got my MS in Business Leadership where I basically used the hospitality industry as the basis for all of my coursework and final thesis.

But by all means, feel free to disregard what I write.

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This is not true. It's not difficult for a property to check to see if the digital key was used. They simply have to send someone to the room to check the lock using a handheld device. It only takes a few minutes for a Night Auditor to accomplish this check. (Most Night Auditors like tasks that let they walk around a bit. It's a pretty dull job most of the time.)

While some hotels may fail to do that simple task to verify no-shows, every decently-run hotel will have a system in place wherein Housekeeping will notify the Front Desk of any checked-in-but-vacant rooms. At that point, the Front Desk will switch the status of the reservation to no-show to ensure they are in compliance with the requirements of the franchise agreement.

This action by Housekeeping is not some unusual task only done by a small number of hotels. It's something done every day by all hotels because it's common for guests to check out of a multi-night reservation early. It happens all the time. In many cases, guests don't even bother to notify the Front Desk. But because hotels have systems in place, they usually end up checking the guest out once they vacate the room.

Will you get points and stay credits on some checked-in online but never showed up reservations? Yes, because some hotels are poorly-run (or they don't care about defrauding the chain).

Will you get points and stay credits every time you do that? No.