hbtr

Agreed, but I don’t think all properties have a day use rate. I did this last year in Boston and out of about 10 properties I checked only 2 appeared to have day use rates.

:D!

Raffles had a similar problem a few years back https://www.headforpoints.com/2016/0...-fine-penalty/

FLYGVA

This happens a lot, if you check in early in the morning. Like others, I book a room for the night when I arrive in the early morning (e.g on flight between Europe and Asia) and want to have a room after arriving. Usually, I e-mail the hotel in advance pointing out, that I will check in early in the morning rather than late. Some hotels check me in manually late in the evening to avoid that the systems catches me as no show. But I admit that it could be a bit of a hassle to follow up. Airport hotels have less problems with that imo

But definitively something the hotel need to be involved

Enigma368

For me, the bad thing is not that it happened but that the hotel management, who must realise they are clearly in the wrong, are just digging in and basically telling the OP to get lost, in the hope that he will just drop it. Especially surprising for a Hilton. Might expect this kind of behaviour from a lower end chain.

pazza2000

HGI by any chance?

The Road Goes On Forever

Bingo! As long as you check in online and the digital key process is working/available at the hotel then you can be fully checked in without issue and then the hotel has no clue whether you really arrived at 8pm or 8am or anywhere in between.

Day use rates are far more common at airport locations for obvious reasons. Outside of that they are few and far between.

refox3488

I am not sure if others already know this, but I just recently learned that you can check Hilton day rates simply by selecting the same check in and check out date when searching on Hilton.com. I love this feature and hope that more hotel chains adopt it, much better than having to e-mail individual properties.

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.

-----

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.

hugolover

I think you’ve been out of hospitality too long if you think there are staff to go to hotel room doors to see if guests have swiped the digital key using some handheld device. That sounds incredibly far fetched. At what frequency should they be going to the room to check? Every 2 hours? And so what? Because the guest could still arrive in the morning, even after breakfast and this is legitimate, long after the bored Night Auditor with their creepy device is in their bed. It sounds a bit like those TV Detector vans they would say could spot if people didn’t have a BBC licence...

It’s interesting you concede there is no way to know if the key is used in the system which is true.

A properly run hotel sounds like one with oodles of staff who consider it their duty to chase no-show fees (if that even is in their financial interest if it’s just a paid stay anyway) and a hotel with loads of staff is not one I know of. Especially now; and for years to come.

Once the night audit is run it’s too late to reverse it and that includes the reimbursement for Honors stays. By the morning, probably HK are delighted they don’t have another room to clean and won’t say anything, and with CleanStay the magic seal means the unused room is 100% germ free and doesn’t need to be touched.

The Road Goes On Forever

What you're saying above while I'm sure could work in the world of the full service hotel where you have multiple night auditors working at the same time along with potentially security and/or a housekeeper(s) or maybe a 3rd shift manager, in 20+ years of working in the industry for both corporate and franchise managed full and limited service properties I have never seen or heard of what you're talking about. First off, I've worked night audit at different points in time since 1998 and I have never heard of a property that was good with the only employee in the building leaving the front desk for any reason that wasn't extremely pertinent. Pre-pandemic the average limited service property is staffed thinly at best and unless business has somehow amazingly returned, it's now much worse. Past that fact, you assume that the property allows access to the iPad device that reads/programs the door locks. At the Hampton I work at now and at the Homewood I worked prior, both places (and I was at the Homewood long enough to go through three different owners/four management companies and six GM's) would never let anyone aside from a manager (all two or three of them) come anywhere near that device. If it's in the GM's office safe, obviously no one has access to it.

At check in when I ask the guest if they would like to opt in for housekeeping service daily or on a particular day of their stay, 95+% currently decline and after that no one is going into their room or checking on anything until after 11am on their check out date. That doesn't change whether it's a one night stay or a six night stay. Do guest's check out early and not say anything about it? Of course and then we simply do an adjustment when they call. Like hugolover said, if the housekeeper sees that the seal is still on the door and unless they are directed to specifically check a room, it's not happening.

While you choose to see it as poorly run, I would retort that it's more like how the system is rigged when pre-pandemic the average franchise staffing model called for ringing as much as possible out of as few employees as possible. Now at my hotel, where the GM was sent by the management company to work as a FOM an hour away indefinitely eight months ago, the AGM is doing multiple night audit shifts a week and the bulk of the staff that was laid off in March staff have not been brought back or their positions filled with new hires. Do you really think that all of these checks and balances are realistically possible? Please.

IAN-UK

I follow your argument, and that of hugolover: both have a solid slab of common sense on their side. I can't see why there'd be much interest in in diverting staff to check if the occupant of a paid room, checked-in remotely, had in fact arrived: given the occupant has every right to arrive anytime within his/her paid stay, what would be the point.

It would be more effective simply to ask housekeeping to check the room at check-out time. If pristine, unused, maybe then leap into action with the lock-reader gadget.


`What Intrigues me about your post is the idea that the lock-reader is somehow special, a reserved tool. Most technical stuff sails over my head, but what is the story here?

muzthe42nd

The lock reader can open any lock. Including dead bolted locks.

So you want as few people as possible to access it for guest safety.

Also, speaking from experience, there is a way to remotely check the last time a digital key was used on a lock without having to walk up and check the door. In the three years I've worked at digital key enabled hotels I can count the number of times I've checked that on two fingers.

hugolover

In OnQ, really?

Often1

Well, if OP had filed a chargeback the day he started this thread, he would now have at least a temporary credit and it is highly unlikely that either Hilton or the property would bother to respond.

muzthe42nd

Sort of. It's a web app called the e-check in dashboard. It's where the front desk goes to re-issue digital keys. Hidden in the settings somewhere you can look at the status of the locks to check battery levels, and it will tell you the number of days since it was last used.