Often when you check into a hotel, the front desk clerk hands you your key in a sleeve that has your room number written on it. While that’s helpful when you first arrive at the hotel, be sure to remember your hotel room number in your head and don’t keep the key stored in that sleeve. Why? Well, a high-profile New York woman was dining at a fancy sushi restaurant in L.A. over the weekend of the Academy Awards when someone stole her purse from the back of her chair. Inside her purse was her hotel room key, which was presumably still inside the paper sleeve with her room number on it. What happened next? That’s right! The thief broke into her hotel room and stole $20,000 worth of jewelry.
This unfortunate incident is a good reminder for all of us. First, don’t put your purse on the back of your chair and secondly, don’t store your room key in the sleeve that has your hotel room number written on it. If you must, take a photo of the hotel sleeve or a photo of your room number and store it on your phone. Better still, text yourself your room number with no reference to what the number refers to.
Related: Don’t Leave Spare Hotel Keys Lying Around
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#metoo LOL, this woman ( sorry, or is it a peon or a thing these days ? ) needs to give itself an almighty upper-cut. What an idiot. #metoo LOL
Need your help; I’ve been trying in vain to contact VIATOR via telephone to finalize trip plans. Until recently they always included their telephone number. any suggestions? Thank you Really enjoy ALL your emails.
Try this https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i12105-k10766686-Viator_contact-TripAdvisor_Support.html
Great advice!!! I almost always leave my key stored in the sleeve….no more after reading this!
a great tip the desk staff at the Welbourn in London suggested: take a photo with your phone of your claim ticket for stored luggage at the hotel, could also me used to remember your room number!!!
I have worked in the mid-market hospitality industry for almost 25 years.Most hotel room key selves and not customized with the exact hotel. They are generic (branded) or plain with no branding what so ever. You need to protect the key inside of an envelope to protect the mag strip which can easily be erased (cell phone or key fob battery). Those who don’t protect their keys run the risk of a key not working when returning to the guest room and then really being pissed off to need to come to the desk to have the key remade.
(You need to get out of those Hoity-Toity hotels and stay with the common people. LOL)
interesting to read a vareity
I always think the same with hire cars – they always give you the keyring with the car registration number on it (and often make of car just to make it even easier for a thief to find it!) I’m always paranoid I will lose the car key!
Yes, they can do that to you. I was in a 3-star, sorta hippie hotel in Laos last September, and something similar happened to me. I lost the key and ended up paying more than $300 just like that because it was in their policy. Had a lot of arguments, but I had to shell out. As a frequent traveller, that was the first time I lost a key and first time I had such an argument with hotel staff.