cordelli

Most safes are small enough to fit in a suitcase.

Most hotel rooms have suitcases in them

If crooks can walk out of hotels carrying flat screen tv's from conference rooms, they most certainly can pop the safe (if it's horribly mounted) and put it in your suitcase and stroll out of the room. Nobody would even notice.

Emeraldcity

I was in Las Vegas and had my valuables in the room safe. Couldn't for the life of me remember my code to get in the safe. Security came in, hooked up a little machine to the safe and opened it right up. It even told me what my code was. After seeing that it took them about 3 seconds to open that safe AND know the code, I don't use them anymore for anything other than non valuable stuff I just don't want laying out anywhere.
I use the front desk for anything else.

steve81zh

Sure, my experience was more the exception than the norm. However this is true for theft in hotels in general! As pointed out by many in this thread, occasional theft by hotel personnel is also the most frequent one. This is easily protected against by having a suitcase with a lock on it and your valuables inside. Can you imagine a hotel maid walking away with a suitcase? It's all about not creating the opportunity, and in fact, even if you do, I can tell by experience that most times, absolutely nothing happens.

However, if "professional" thieves do target your room, as unlikely this may be, the safe will be the first (if not the only) thing they will take care of. As I know at least three people with this experience (none of us lost really important stuff, as a matter of fact), it is not even that unlikely. It also seems to depend on which countries you travel to.

cbn42

So you don't think that hotel staff can access what you leave at the front desk?

ESPECIALROB

When traveling with my passport, I usually use the room safe to put it and some valuables away. However, I have a photocopy of the passport "just in case", and keep it in a separate place and/or provide a trusted friend at home with the copy, that could be e-mailed or faxed to me if my passport is lost, so as to continue travel or expedite an emergency replacement.

Frankly I'm delighted to have a safe in the room, as I've been to properties that don't have room safes, or a safe for guest use at the front desk! This last happened to me in Edmonton a few years ago. I had to carry my passport and other valuables on me during that entire trip!

Also, I seem to recall one hotel having a room safe I wasn't comfortable using, but its front desk had safe deposit boxes there, so I simply used those.

In the UK, I stayed at hotels without safety deposit boxes in rooms or at the front desk, but the managers agreed to put a sealed envelope in their safe for me with my valuables, but I could only access it when they were on duty.

Once I stayed at a Hotel in the London area, and when I asked for a safe deposit box, I was provided with a large locker, big enough to store luggage, along with a key, as my "safe deposit box".

QueenOfCoach

I carry a photocopy but also upload a pdf to secure online document storage. That means I can get the passport copy from any computer in the world with internet access.

As to the OP's question, I don't carry truly valuable stuff when I travel. I might leave my keys and US-only cell phone in the safe, but would leave anything really valuable in the front desk safe.

I would also accertain, in advance, if the place has a front desk safe before booking the hotel if I had a need to secure very valuable items.

TMOliver

Good suggestions. No safe is totally secure, be it the the concrete, steel and doors and locks of a bank vault, the front desk 'safe' or lock boxes at a hotel (The list of hotel safe robberies is a long one!), or most room safes (pretty flimsily attached in many cases), but like every "safe", the purposes are to discourage burglars/"safecrackers" by slowing the time required for access or making removal inconvenient and awkward.

Those TV surveillance videos of robbers dragging away ATM are good evidence that even "Mo'and Betta'" security than a hotel safe is no barrier to attempts by ambitious thieves. I wouldn't put the crown jewels in a room safe (not maybe the good Rolex, but I long ago left that at home). They are fine for documents and modest valuables.

gregmchicago

Don't be so sure about the "any computer in the world." We tried this on a trip to China -- where the internet is well-censored -- and couldn't get my dad's copy after he dropped his passport in a Beijing taxi. Fortunately, the exceedingly honest cab driver found it and tracked us down at our hotel.

Ancien Maestro

How else would you expect them to open the safe that you forgot the code?..

I frequent Fairmont hotels alot.. and never had a problem using their safes..

Usually, only the manager on duty is authorized to open up safes.. but only after you forgot the code, and want your stuff out of it

LizzyDragon84

I don't use hotel safes often as I don't carry much in the way of valuables beyond a passport and some cash.

I prefer using a safe over my locked suitcase since there's nothing to keep a thief from just rolling the case out and breaking into it later. A safe at least provides some deterrent, even if can eventually be broken into or removed.

antihero

Had $200 taken out of my safe in Dominican Republic resort. Safe was locked and everything else was still in there.

Learned my lesson.

dchristiva

This has been my experience, too. I've never given it a second thought.

Ancien Maestro

Did the hotel address the issue?

Airbus9000

Another interesting fact is that at least in the U.S most hotels have a clause in their contract that does not guarantee security of items left in hotel room safes - mainly because of all the previous responses such as it is not difficult to remove a hotel safe, as well as previous issues with dishonest employees having access to master keys or locks that can open a hotel safe in case a guest has forgotten the safe key or code. The safe at the front desk of most hotels is the safest and provides the most protection - yet it is usually the most inconvenient for most travelers.

If you do a search on Trip Advisor with the words "item stolen from hotel room safe" you will find that the majority of issues surrounding items being stolen from safes involve international destinations - but you will find a few comments from folks staying in hotels here in the US.

You also have to take the comments that folks write in these posts with a grain of salt...many people may have lost their items someplace else, and thought they left it in their hotel room safe, others may have had issues with someone else in their travel party take valuables - especially cash (it would not be the first time where someones kid stole money from their parents and said "it was not me".

But after you read several of the comments, throw out the odd balls, and try to read thru the garbage, you will find many of the comments of thefts from in-room safes will share a a similar theme and story..The comments will be posted by someone who has had many postings before - seems to be a legit traveler - and reports that something was missing from their room safe when traveling internationally.

You will find some travelers reporting that they could have swore that they left 500 cash in the safe, only to come back late at night and find only 400. Most times a guest may second guess themselves, especially since their is no damage to the hotel safe. They just think that they may have miss-counted the cash to begin with, and simply forget about it.

Here is an interesting video that a traveler shot while visiting a hotel overseas in the Canary Islands and thought that something was up with strange phone calls to their room. While the video is a few years old, it is still appropriate for travelers to keep in the back of their mind.

Watch this You Tube video and you will see a hotel employee enter a hotel room where they think the guest is away for the evening, however, the guest is actually hiding in the closet with a video camera. Here is the video.

Now by all means, I think we all can agree that this type of theft does not happen everyday...probably very little, and is obviously committed by a small amount of dishonest hotel employees who work at hotels that don't have a good master key control system. A good hotel has a great security protocol when it comes to employees having access to the in-room safe master keys and codes that open all in-room safes. Every hotel has to have these keys and codes, and most have great checks and balances to make sure these types of employee thefts don't occur.

For those who want an extra layer of security for their in-room hotel safe, they can purchase a small portable lock that is specifically designed to be put on a in room hotel safe called a "Milockie". These locks allow the owner to lock the main door of the safe, then put their own lock on the outside of the safe.

By using this type of secondary lock, a dishonest hotel employee or external thief can only gain access into the in room safe by cutting off your own lock, which would leave behind obvious signs of forced entry.

While any thief can cut the lock to gain entry, a dishonest employee does not want to alert the hotel guest that their safe was broken into. This type of lock is just an additional layer of security for those who want it, or for use on hotel safes in properties that have had a problem in the past.

Of course you can simply avoid these issues all together by placing your valuables in the safe at the front desk - where that safe almost always has a higher level of security and can't be simply removed from the hotel room.

QueenOfCoach

I'm wondering...

Under the assumption that the thief goes after "easy" targets, first, would it be such a bad idea to simply put a paper sticker across the room safe with one's signature on it? All that would do would provide evidence of tampering, however it might deter the amateur hotel employee thief. Such a person would enter the room prepared to open the safe, not peel off and somehow replace a paper sticker. (You might want to travel with a small bottle of WD-40, which is great for adhesive removal.)

Having said that, I have always heard that truly valuable stuff should go in the front desk safe. The manager on duty is the only person with access to the front desk safe, as far as I have always heard. I don't travel with the Hope Diamond, so haven't had a great need for super-secure safes. The only thing I ever leave is my home cell phone, house keys, etc.