Hotel Key Cards
 

Is anyone else frustrated with their hotel key cards not working? Why won't
hotels find a system more reliable? The keys are always in my back pocket, not by the cell phone, not in the wallet. As far a traveling goes, this is the most frustrating part for me; having to drag my luggage back down to get new keys.

I've got 35-40 stays this year and it hasn't happened to me once. Not that it hasn't ever happened, but just not so frequently that I would complain. I did stay at a couple older properties in the UK this year that still had enormous metal keys and they expected guests to leave them at the desk while they were out. I don't like doing that and I don't like a pocket full of key either. I think I prefer the cards and will take my chances that they work much more often than not.

130 nights in hotels this year and it happened to me only one time.

I have this problem consistently at one particular hotel, and yet I never have difficulty elsewhere. I'm not sure whether it's a question of incompetent staff or outdated keycard technology. A while back, I remember Nikko Hotels would let you use your frequent guest card as a key. I don't know what happened with that, but it's certainly not something that caught on anywhere else. The airlines seemed ready to use the magnetic stripes on the frequent flyer cards in lieu of paper boarding passes, but then Homeland Security was born and innovation died.

I've had this happen to me a few times, usually at one particular hotel. The solution I came up with is to ask for two keycards when I check-in. This greatly reduces the number of times I need to go back to the front desk as at least one of them will work.

I agree - in the 130 nights this past year across four continents, one particular hotel had all of the instances of key card failure, and at that location it was an almost every day occurrence.

1- try pulling up on the handle
2- key cards are nothing more than cheap plastic
3- VING sucks

I used to have this problem all the time. Then I found out that my money clip has a magnet in it.


Now my son (who works the front desk at a major hotel) says that he thinks that the strip on credit cards may cause the keycard to stop working. I don't think he's right though. Since I found out about the moneyt clip I keep my hotel keys in my wallet next to my credit cards. I haven't had a problem in years. BUT the kid says it happens all the time and he's sticking to his story. I think he's nuts.

Just my 2.5 cents

I've had sporadic problems with keycards around the world. The old type, with the holes in the card work fine, but are found in some scattered older hotels these days.

Getting two keycards works fine, of course, as long as you don't store them together. I once had a hotel where ever other day, I'd have to get a new key card, as it wouldn't work when I went up. As long as the hotel is programming the cards right (for your entire stay), then this shouldn't happen.

You can always try rubbing the magnetic strip on your pants, that lets me in about 50% of the time.

I agree with the OP. There has to be a more reliable system. Although it seems to have gotten better over the years, I would say it still happens to me roughly 5% of the time.

Even the posters who report 1 time out of 100... why is that satisfactory? I hate the feeling of checking in to a hotel, late at night, exhausted, having to get up in just a few hours, and wondering if the key will work... It's the 21st century... the keys should always work.

hurlimann

I can think of maybe 2 occasions in the past 5 years (over over 100 nights per year) where this has happened - both cases were due to desk error, and met with profuse apologies (and an upgrade in one case!)

I have noticed, however, that keycards in certain door types seem to always fail on the very first attempt, but never afterwards. This seems to be particularly prevalent in SAS Radisson hotels.

Perhaps 'proximity cards', like those commonly used for offices, or the Oyster/Octopus public transport cards, could be a good solution? Again, these could quite easily be issued as frequent stay cards too...