AC110

A recent thread raised the suspicion that hotel key cards are encoded with the guest's credit card information, and so should be taken home and shredded rather than returned to the hotel.

Drawing on my experience as a hotel manager in a previous career, I'd like to debunk this and offer a description of how these systems work.

Quite aside from anything else, theres no reason for the hotel to put your credit card info on a room key card. All it's used for is to open your room door, so why would they put your credit card info on it? Additionally, the key encoding machines are not connected to the hotel's computer system, so there's no way to get CC info onto it.

The only thing on the card key is a rotating code and a serial code of some sort to distinguish one key from another (i.e. two master keys will have the same key code but different serial codes.) When you check in, the clerk puts the key in an encoding machine that records onto it the next sequential code for the lock on your room. When you first enter your room the lock recognizes that the next sequential code is being used and instantly invalidates the previous key. That explains why if you get a second key later for someone else, it often messes up your key - the clerk coded a new key rather than a duplicate. The sequence change means that the previous guest can no longer get into the room.

This is an extremely secure system. If a master key goes missing, it's a relatively trivial procedure to rekey the entire hotel. When I worked at the Aerostar Hotel in Moscow in the early 90's, we once rekeyed all 413 rooms in an emergency (lost master keys are taken seriously) overnight, while the guests slept. The security supervisor went through on a routine floor patrol and at each room he slipped in a change key, then the new master key. The lock recogized the next code in the master key sequence and invalidated the old master key. End of story. All the master keys were recoded and security was maintained. We also if I recall instituted a policy that we would rekey the hotel periodically even if no keys were lost.

The locks by the way are not wired into any system, they have batteries in them. They have several key sequences programmed into them, guest key, maids key, supervisors key, master key, emergency key. The emergency key is unique in that it will release the deadbolt, necessary in a fire or medical emergency. The lock also has a memory that remembers the time, date and key code for every entry. In the event of a problem the security staff just needs to read and print the log to see who entered the room at what time.

With the advent of these key systems, room thefts in hotels are almost unheard of.

I should add that I've read the snopes.com article on this issue, and while it indicates that the problem has been resolved in the few places it was found, I can only imagine that someone along the way misunderstood the problem. Not only would it be difficult or impossible to put the info on the card, I can't fathom any reason that a hotel would want to. They already have the info in the reservation and billling system, which is where it is needed, and a key card is only used to open a room door. What possible reason could there be to put credit card info on it?

Hope that clarifies things and puts some minds at rest!