What to do with room keys?
 

Given the popularity of the thread on how long to keep boarding passes (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005054.html), I thought I'd toss this one out too.

What does everyone do with the credit-card hotel room keys? I take mine home for the kids; my 3 year old daughters love to use their "credit cards" and play "shopping"...

I thought the card keys belong to the hotel?

I leave mine in the room on the day of departure, never see the front desk guys at check-out.

They do have a box for the cards on the desk for those who do not use quick checkout.

The cards can be re-encoded and re-used.

I usually return them to the desk or leave them on the desk in the room but I've never heard of a hotel caring too much either way about the credit card type. When the plastic punch keys first came out they were much more diligent about collecting those.

To me it is more a question of recycling. I prefer to recycle whenever possible, but there are no guarantees, the hotel/maid may just through them out too.

There is quite a collectible market on eBAY for hotel room keys, some appear to end up there.

I usually bring them home by mistake, but then I either throw them out or when I go back to the hotel just give them back to re-encode for me. I have a nice all blue Ritz Carlton Club (not some security company or advertisment) one that I may just keep.

LOL... I thought I was the only one that did this also. My daughter loves my hotel key cards and the boarding passes as she plays "travel" like dad http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

George...

What does everyone do with the credit-card hotel room keys? I take mine home for the kids; my 3 year old daughters love to use their "credit cards" and play "shopping"...[/B][/QUOTE]


I usually pack up my room, make sure the key is in my uniform pocket for quick access to drop in the quick checkout box. Half the time I forget and get back to my car and realize it's in my pocket. One day, during a bad snow storm, I got back to my car and realized I didn't have a scraper in my car to clean the ice off the windshield. That's when I figured out, in a bind, what a great ice scraper they make.

Other than that, it's useless. The stupid London Forum key looks like my parking lot access key and I'm always trying to enter and exit the employee parking lot using it. I've thrown them out the window on more than one occasion in frustration. I'm sure the person waiting to enter/exit behind me thinks I have big mental problems.


[This message has been edited by AAFA (edited 08-26-2001).]

Hey, we still have our metal keys from the Plaza in NYC. I think my wife keeps some for souveniers.

We thought if we're back in NY we could use them to get in the front door. You used to be able to look around. now it seems that it's Hotel guests only. (I guess we look like common folk, they seemed surprized we were staying there)

I throw them away... I don't think they cost more than a few cents to manufacture. I wouldn't stress out about it!

I only keep them if I think they'll come in handy in the future. "W" keys, for example, allow you to bypass the line at the "W" bar in Westwood.

In hot countries, I try to find an old key that will fit the main switch, so when I leave the room, the AC stays on (I'll still turn off the lights). I played that trick twice this past week: once in Pokhara, and once in Kathmandu, where it gets quite warm during the rainy season, and the AC never seems to catch up once shut off. I figure that the hotel is free to charge me extra... though that has yet to happen.

ordinary business cards perform that function quite well.

If its a really special place to me or if it's a resort key with a photo of the resort I keep it. (I have even asked front desk if they care on ocassion) Then I tuck it into my photo album with the pictures from the trip. Serves as a nice remembrance.