Checked into occupied room again
 

This week I opened the door to my room at a RI, and found it was never vacated by the previous guest. No one was present at the time, but luggage, food and everything else was there. This is the 3rd time this has happened to me in the past year (once was at a Hilton property).

I wish someone from the Marriott staff could explain how this actually happen. I realize mistakes can be made, but doesn't the computer show if they have actually checked out or not?

Not everyone goes to the front desk to check out.

They should still have housekeeping verify that a room is empty and clean before giving it to the next customer.

Sometimes the FD clerks can switch rooms and it doesn't get documented. Lots of other possibilities.

Human error. You can get rid of most of it, but not all of it.

As Doc Savage writes, it's likely to be human error.

The biggest culprit in the hotels in which I worked were batch check-outs. Since lots of guests don't formally check out, it's up to Housekeeping to inform the Front Desk when they find vacated rooms. Unless there are tons of early arrivals waiting for rooms that day, Housekeeping typically creates a list that gets delivered to the Front Desk for processing.

Sometimes, Housekeeping will have time to actually clean the room before it gets checked out in the system. In that case, they will submit a separate list of clean, vacated rooms. If something goes wrong there, you're more likely to run into this problem.

Whether done by hand or electronically, that gives you at least two different people who can make simple entry errors when recording room numbers. The computer will warm the Front Desk if the departure day is wrong. But, if the correct room and the wrongly-entered room are both due to depart, it's possible the error will not get caught.

Thanks for the input. I guess I should know all of what you said. I am as guilty as many others for not formally check out. Everything the two of you said makes sense.

I don't understand the not checking out excuse. The industry went "bills under the door and just leave" 20+ years ago and I haven't formally checked out since unless I needed an updated copy to expense a checkout-day breakfast charge. Who checks out anymore?

Nothing has changed to accommodate that? As in, this room is automatically scheduled to turn over today and not to make it available without a positive input from someone? Seems like a simple IT function.

Other reasons, sure.

Not formally checking out isn't the problem. Although, I highly recommend taking the minute or two to call the hotel operator/Front Desk and say you're leaving. The hotel can't clean a room they think it still occupied. If you've ever checked in early the day after a sold out night, it's probably because the hotel was able to clean your room early because that guest told someone the room was now empty.

The reason vacant but still checked-in rooms may cause this problem is because they typically get reported on lists. As Housekeeping finds these rooms, they typically create a list that gets delivered to the Front Desk. Sometimes, a staff member might make a mistake like transposing room numbers when creating or clearing those lists.

Hopefully I explained that better the second time.

I usually drop off my keys at the front desk on my way out the door and let them know I am checking out. Since I usually leave fairly early, most of the time no one is there so I just walk out.

Dumb question perhaps, but can they scan my keys to see what room they are for?

yes, keys can be read and will tell you which room they were programmed for and till when. As for the occupied room, its mostly human error. Agent could have not noticed the room was dirty, may have given you the keys to the wrong room, many things.

^^

We always hit 0 on the phone and say we are departing. We never stop at front desk.

I am curious why those posting above me don't use the Marriott APP to check out?

I always do this and have it set to email me the invoice.

With the promotion they have lately, when you use the app for stuff you get put into a draw for that 3.5mil points lottery...

About the OP: I keep reading about this stuff happening...thank God it hasn't happened to me.

Can't speak for others, but Marriott's app doesn't work for my phone.

I think, over the years, I've only encountered an occupied room (either my being in it & someone opening the door or my doing that to them) 3 times & each time was a different chain.

Cheers.

But housekeeping usually starts knocking at 8:01am, usually starting with the rooms checking out that day, looking for work. The entire team can't be idle from 8am to 12p. Its amazing how any work gets done timely under this system.

There is absolutely no acceptable excuse to walk into a room that has not been vacated.

I don't care what procedures are in place, or who's duty it is to sign off, but this should be the first concern by any property.

I've had this happen to me twice at the Embassy Suites in Tampa, a property that I will no longer stay. Once it involved walking in on a nude man coming out of the bathroom. While that's bad enough, what if the nude man was a teenage girl? There's no amount of compensation that would make this right.

Seriously, is there anything more important than making sure a room is vacant?

I like the systems where housekeeping uses the room phone to notify their in-house system that the room has been cleaned and I'm presuming there is a code that it is vacant. That should stop the FD from checking someone else in before the room is ready. Of course that presumes no one gets into the room after that. I especially hate properties the leave the rooms open (flip lock or block the door) while they move from room to room. I've had movie charges show up hours after I left the properties. I takes a while to get management to back those out.

I don't have faith that the app notifies the property as quickly as my 10 second call to the front desk.


Is there a Flyertalk thread where folks list their gripes about properties saying they never received info that was submitted through the app? We had it happen regarding arrival time several times.