I had an interesting experience the other week. I went to my hotel room and inserted the card, and nothing happened. I did it repeatedly with no success in getting the lock to disengage, so I finally went downstairs to get the problem fixed.

The clerk at the desk whipped me up a new one right away, then asked me if I kept the card near my cell phone.

Well, yes, I did. The phone is clipped to my belt on my left side and I habitually keep my room "key" in my left pocket in its paper sleeve.

She said that it is very common in her experience that when the cell phone goes off, it somehow tends to mess up the magnetic stripe on the room card on occasion. She said that it very seldom happens unless the two are in close proximity.

While I have had this happen to me a few times in the past, and it certainly sounds reasonable, I am also thinking of the hundreds of stays where the room card did NOT get wiped.

What do you think? Is this plausible?