hobson

Anyone else experience this? checked in last night at the Westin Cincinnati...only couldn't do it until I showed my photo ID.

Didn't like it. Did it anyway because I was tired. This has never happened to me before and I'm a Platinum member, if that makes any difference.

fly co to see the yanks

the last several times i have checked into a hotel they have asked for it. and, not just starwood. hyatt did it to me also.

noname

Doubletree last night. Seems it's a new policy but lousy enforced.

cxn

I would say it is about 50% for me right now.

Why not just look at the CC I hand them.

O well revenue protection just like the airlines did a few years back.

Christian

Odin

I have always thought that it depends on the country you are in. Only in certain countries like Thailand and Indonesia where they ask me for passport. In other places, it has always been swift. I guess i am wrong and i guess it totally depends on the hotel.

TTT103

Yes, they have asked me more times than not. I guess if it means extra security, I'm all for it. Unfortunately, a drivers license doesn't prove a thing now--a-days.

influential

Happened to me last week at the W Times Square - assumed it was something to do with bar charges.

tfong007

It happens all over Asia. Its standard practice. I just show my business card, passport, plat card and visa. Its become routine

Punki

I have never been asked for an ID at check-in.

Chppp

In all my travels, I've only been asked for photo ID at *one* US hotel: the <GODAWFUL> Sheraton Manhattan.

I asked why and the clerk said that it was a Starwood policy post 9/11. I've stayed in many, many Starwood hotels post 9/11 and this is the only time it happened.

After having presented my printed out confirmation, my credit card, and my Starwood card, I thought "what difference does it make if I'm me or not???" I was almost mad enough to have walked over to the Hilton Times Square, which is a much, much better place to be, but I had a business dinner in less than an hour.

I find this photo id requirement to check in ridiculous. I think it's a great requirement for a replacement key, but for checking it, it's downright silly.

Kremmen

Yep, it's standard practice by the various fascist governments in Asia which like to know where everyone is every minute of the day. There, it's a government requirement. In the US, I wonder who's behind it?

mtacchi

Fascist US Government maybe..?

[This message has been edited by mtacchi (edited 06-28-2002).]

marivk

What about hotels in Italy, has anyone been asked to produce ID? I had understood that it was standard practice in Europe.

Shareholder

Virtually every country outside NAmerica will ask foreign nationals for their passport, and most registration forms request such information, at check in. And most residents in the world have national photo ID cards, and must carry them at all times. Of the advanced world, the US has the lowest ownership of passports, which reflects two things: an aversion to ID cards, and an ignorance of how the rest of the world operates.

In some respects, this is an anachronism, in others it is required by local government/police officials. In most of the EEC, filling in the passport number is no longer required. But you cannot assume the entire world is governed by the lax attitude towards ID as the U.S. is. You may consider it an infringement on your freedom and liberty, but they see it as an added security precaution.

You can chose to stay or not stay at a property that asks for photo ID, but they also have the right to ensure the person staying there is who the person says s/he is. Sure, ID can be forged, but 99% of people are honest and have true ID. If you have nothing to fear, what's the problem here?

Sure, it's first step in a slippery slope to a totalitarian state. But my god, your bank knows more about you than the government in these days of database marketing. Events since 9.11 have shown the Emperor has no clothes, that Big Brother does not reside in Washington, that officials there are drowning in the miniscule amount of information they already have, and they couldn't link it together if they wanted, let alone track us down based on it.

I would much sooner stay at a hotel that asks all guests to verify their identity, than one that takes no notice.

I have never had it happen in NAmerica, but always present my passport, credit card and hotel elite card when I check in anywhere else in the world.

Steve M

This is quite true. I certainly don't fault a hotel for complying with local laws. Furthermore, I think it's the responsibility of international travelers to respect and comply with local laws, however different they may be from those in their home country.

Quite true. I think that Americans are particularly prone to expect that things in other parts of the world be done the way they are in the US, whether it be not showing a passport at hotel check-in, or getting free soft drink refills as a matter of course at Burger King. Although I think few traveling Americans as a percentage have these problems, it's always embarassing to see it when it happens, and of course the people in other countries that witness it will remember the one rude person as strongly as the 50 polite ones that came before them.

Speaking of draconian government requirements, I took notice of a requirement I ran into in Singapore, which required all users of Internet cafes to show their national ID card or passport, and have the details recorded in a log book. After all, if the gov't detected that someone downloaded a dirty picture, or posted some unauthorized opinion about the current government, how else would they be able to track down who did it?

This is a particularly dangerous point of view, in my opinion. It's the same point of view that causes government officials, and many members of the general public, to immediately be suspicious of anyone that doesn't voluntarily submit to a warrantless (and perhaps unwarranted) search, or invokes their right to remain silent. After all, what do you have to hide if you've done nothing wrong?

In the US, these are very important fundamental rights, yet the government and many laypersons consider the invocation of these rights to be in of itself an indication of guilt. What's the point of having these rights if one can't actually use them without creating a cloud of suspicion?

Note that I don't think this line of reasoning necessarily applies to submitting to required procedures in a foreign country, as of course each country has its unique history, set of values, and system of government. If I find a particular country's laws unconscionable, I always have the option of not traveling there.

But the bank will never try to put you in prison because you do something they don't agree with. Short of stealing money from the bank, the bank really doesn't care what you do. They collect the data so as to be able to sell you more products, not to keep track of your activities per se. This is a very different motivation than that of government.

Believe me, they're definately working on correcting this "problem." Considering the history of governmental abuse of power, this is something we all should be concerned with.

It certainly is true that the amount of data collected by "signals intelligence" programs, such as Echelon, is indeed overwhelming. This doesn't really speak one way or the other to the issue of collecting information for routine domestic transactions. More specfically, it's much easier to pass laws mandating that private business collect and maintain massive amounts of information about its customers, including identifying information, and require that this data be shared with the government in the absense of a warrant or other judicial review or public scrutiny, than it is to spend the money (tens of billions of dollars?) required to buy the supercomputers and hire the tens of thousands of employees needed to process all of the foreign intelligence collected.

Also, now that we are collecting this transactional information for national security purposes, it would be a shame to not use it to catch deadbeat dads, child abusers, drug dealers, drug users, or other deviants, now wouldn't it? Hell, we could even use this information to keep a close watch on people we suspect might be prone to doing these things in the future, couldn't we?

Every hotel I've stayed at in Las Vegas requests and requires ID when checking in. I think this has a lot to do with them wanting to compile accurate customer histories, and little to do with physical security. By collecting your date of birth and drivers license/passport number, they can separately and accurately keep track of all of the 100 different John Smiths that stay with them each year.