"Forgot" to checkout. Extra night of charges?
 

I normally checkout myself on the app but this morning I left the hotel early around 4am. Didn't see anyone, so I dropped off my key card in the express checkout slot.

Forgot to checkout on the app until earlier tonight...never got a final statement via email. Come to think of it, never got an initial statement during the overnight hours. Prepaid reservation if it matters.

Am I going to get charged for an extra night? The app doesn't have the checkout option anymore anyway.

housekeeping usually will give the fd the departure list and note anyone checked out. I'd call the hotel to inquire but you should have gotten a folio emailed to you or downloadable from your account

Were you scheduled to leave today? Or did you cut your stay short? If the former, you should be ok. But if it's the latter, it's likely (in view of current housekeeping practices) that no one checked your room and that the hotel assumes you are still there.

Edit: Reread your post and saw you mention no longer having the option to check out. I've seen the same thing whenever I left a hotel and forgot to check out. I don't know how they handle statements for prepaid reservations. It could be that the room charge statement is what you get when you make the reservation and they only send an update for incidental charges during your stay.

In US hotels, I rarely check-out unless I need to speak to the front desk. Never had an issue.

I would estimate over the last 10 years I have had more than 100 departures in various hotels (Marriott and Hilton), in which I did not ‘check out’ and I have never been charged anything extra.

Ditto. Until last month when I never got my folio and saw my stay was extended by a week for some reason. A few messages back and forth with the hotel sorted it but it was rather odd. Generally no issue though most hotels will just send a folio in the afternoon once housekeeping is done.

Same experience here. And the iOS app does still have the checkout option. It is located in a different spot then previously.

I've left multiple times where the app didn't have a checkout option. It's never been a problem. Folio usually shows up in email later that day.

is it not a basic courtesy to the hotel to let them know the room is free so it can be cleaned ready for the next guest, who may be waiting for it ? Or to everyone else in the hotel who is disturbed by housekeeping banging on their door to find out whether they have checked out or not ?

I’ve never actually “checked out”

The prepaid part needs some context. If you booked a prepaid via a 3rd party like Priceline, Hotels.com, etc. you wouldn't get a receipt since those rates are suppressed at the property. Yes, an agent can screw up and override that suppression and send you a receipt as to what the property is billing the 3rd party site but that will obviously be different than what you paid and is a big operational no-no. If the prepaid rate is directly from the parent company's site then you should be able to get a receipt. Either way you should have gotten an email wherever you booked confirming what you were charged. Consider that you're receipt.

If you booked a prepaid rate and are not due to check out the hotel has no way to know and most will leave your reservation in to the checkout date for accounting/reporting purposes. Rooms where the charges are applied via the night audit process are usually counted directly towards that night's occupancy versus someone manually posting a room charge which does not appear the same on an occupancy report and may not even be routed to the same GL code.

Prepaid rates are set up as either an internal direct bill where the property has to hold the charge until the parent company pays them for it or in the case of a 3rd party they issue a ghost card number that the property can only charge for the exact room and tax of the stay and that card will not authorize past that amount.

I just did a rare 7-3 shift this past Sunday where 90% of the property was a checkout. Out of the 95 possible check outs, at 11am over 50 were still on the departure screen because I had heard nothing from them about whether they had checked out. This is the norm. App use is still extremely low and very few people check in or out that way. The bulk of guests simply just leave. It's been that way for a long time. People over a certain age still want paper receipts and to confirm that are checked out. People who are splitting charges with others in the room will wait until checkout to do that but past that no one has a need since emails are auto generated for almost all reservations and for most, that 's good enough.

I always check out in person with the front desk, but I was diagnosed by a mental health professional with OCD. There might be a correlation...

I’m sorry for laughing. I have ocd too but mine isn’t bothered by this lol

Glad I got someone to laugh!

Is that true? Does the check-out information get transmitted to the housekeeper, particularly on the day of departure?