birdiedouble

What I have experienced a couple times are groups using a hotel room for a either a pre and/or post party room for a night out at the bars. The pre part isn’t a huge problem, but the post bar party was pretty disruptive. Took a couple calls to the front desk to get some action. It’s also a good way to stay off the radar of the police by dealing drugs out of a rotating location rather than out of one house.

Ghoulish

A little data analysis demonstrating this disproportionately impacts one protected demographic group or another and the first big civil rights settlement will put an end to these policies.

OTOH, in Canadian major cities I've been charged $300 deposits in case of room damage at large hotels. I'm not talking about an incidental hold, but a charge. Now I think I know why.

AS MHT

Once, shortly after moving away, I returned to my previous city to tie up some loose ends. The hotel pushed back with my ID still showing a local address. After explaining the move and providing, verbally, my new address, they happily checked me in. YMMV

nd2010

Check in with a passport. Change the address for your loyalty account and maybe also your credit card billing address. Should anyway carry a passport card to use for ID in places you don’t want to give your address to.

kochleffel

Yes. One of my employees stayed in hotels for six weeks after his house was struck by lightning.

Doppy

I certainly believe there are issues with some local partiers or drug enthusiasts, but it seems unlikely to me that people who are planning a major illegal event or to trash a hotel room are checking in with elite status and legitimate ID.

In any event, the big problem here is that the hotel doesn't disclose this policy so you get taken by surprise at check in. What's worse is that they knew in advance of arrival that there was a conflict with the secret policy (as acknowledged by the front desk agents) and didn't do anything to warn the guest before arrival.

Qwkynuf

In what could be a much more impactful problem, a few years ago I booked a room for my sister when her husband beat her up and she was in the process of leaving him. I would think that denying a room to a battered spouse - solely for the reason of a local address on the ID - could have the potential for a very bad look for the property if that person were to go back home and be further harmed

whitewave

How strange, I never knew some hotels have this policy.

paperwastage

i wonder if you can take advantage of this. they aren't honoring your reservation

ohmark

You would think that would be none of their concern.
Checked into a Marriott property in Florida with my wife. FDC said, in a not particularly quiet voice, "And, I presume this is Mrs Ohmark? (pointing at my wife).

wrp96

I stayed at a hotel two miles from house for two days last week as I had no power in my home.

Ghoulish

Try checking into a hotel at 2am, after a 12 hour flight, as a 45 yo with my 22 yo sugar baby, her still in airline pajamas, clutching the $200 Steiff teddy bear I bought on board, only in that moment and bright light of the lobby realizing she now looks 14. 😂

In hindsight I'm shocked the clerk didn't ask for her ID, or call the cops. Then again, with the labor shortage the guy they managed to get working the front desk at that hour might have had no interest in seeing the police under any circumstances.

kabroui

This policy is just annoying beyond belief. For an evening out at a local concert or other potentially alcohol related events, I will always book a room near the venue and walk/uber/taxi so that noone would need to take the risk of driving. I really would like hotels to post this policy so that I can simply avoid EVER staying there, regardless of why I need to be in their area.

jmastron

Well, 45 is old enough to assume she's your daughter Try being 25 with a 24yo gf who looked 16 -- hotel people didn't care, but we overheard relatives of the people whose wedding we were at were murmuring "she's too young to be in a hotel with him...". And then 30 with a 29yo wife (who still looked 16) on our honeymoon, the ladies at the Irish breakfast buffet quietly asking her if she was "okay" when I was away. This was many years ago. She let her hair go to its now-natural grey a few years ago partially to look her age...but then it was an "in" color for young people to die their hair so people thought she'd just spent a lot of money on it

Back to the topic here -- it's annoying for a hotel to have a rigid nonstandard policy, for all the reasons stated (perfectly valid reasons for normal people to take a local-cation, need a local hotel during construction, while moving to/from a place, etc). Yes, balanced against local people being perhaps more likely to get a room to party or do nefarious things. But it's negligent, deceptive and potentially fraudulent to not disclose that very clearly on all parts of their booking site, and to then enforce it as a surprise on arrival without finding and paying for alternate accomodations as with any other "walk".

OP, what did you end up doing -- finding an alternative hotel, or going home? That might determine what you could ask for in compensation. I assume the HIE didn't attempt to charge for the night and/or refunded any deposit (otherwise that would be true fraud, of course).

GUWonder

This kind of stuff has been done by hotels in the US since before most people in the US, Canada and Europe ever heard of email. I recall such hotel practices in parts of North America existing since at least the early 1980s.

From what I have known of hotels that went to such kind of practices, legitimate ID was being used most of the time for arranging for questionable parties and other activities in the run-up to a hotel or hotels transitioning to such kind of police, sometimes even transitioning at the urging of law enforcement. [Illegitimate ID use would ramp up after the change to such policy. ] Also, as law enforcement in the US increasingly got into the power-tripping business of civil asset forfeiture and was otherwise too given more powers from state legislatures for grabbing assets from increasingly foreign-origin hotel/motel owners, hotel owners/operators had even more reason to try to avoid questionable business from locals.

Even where I have seen hotels have anti-local stay practices where getting to the hotel primarily involves taking a car, I’ve been able to check-in by just showing a passport and/or passport card and seen other exceptions made at times. Maybe having an out-of-state birthplace has helped. Sometimes elite status in the hotel loyalty program has helped. And it hasn’t hurt to have non-local addresses on file with the hotel loyalty programs, at least in terms of the ability to check-in on rates for “non-locals”.