Originally Posted by
pinniped
This is not true. I had been Marriott Platinum for 3 years before turning 25, mostly business stays in the U.S. but also some leisure stays in the U.S. and about 5 other countries. Mostly mainline Marriott hotels in large cities. My first years out of undergrad were my heaviest travel years, actually.
Also had Hilton and Hyatt mattress runs in there when the promos were lucrative enough to pull me away from Marriott. Without my U25 nights, I wouldn't be LT Titanium today.
I also had quite a few trips in college (under 21) to various motel brands and rarely ran across issues with being under 21. Credit card in my name may have helped - not sure a cash payer would have been received as well or not.
Getting into travel while in college -- including with hotel rooms booked under the name of the college student -- and then going on into employer-covered travel as a 20-25 year-old has indeed been quite typical in the US. At many a place, it's not been unusual for people to recruit 20-25 year olds to help take up a bunch of the grunt travel stuff. And given how few complaints we would come across about hotel stays for people that age but how many we would hear about for car rentals, it's been pretty clear to me that most hotels in the US don't generally give a problem to 20-25 year olds with a bank card in their name with enough available funds on it for the stay + incidental charges.
Old enough to be in the US military but not old enough to stay in a hotel without a much older adult? Not commonly an issue in the US nowadays unless there is some concerns about parties or potentially illegal activity.