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In some Las Vegas hotels I no longer need to stop at a counter or stand in a line and it’s 1000x better experience. I can walk directly to my room and scan my p

In some Las Vegas hotels I no longer need to stop at a counter or stand in a line and it’s 1000x better experience. I can walk directly to my room and scan my phone. I can scan my phone for parking. I can grab extra keys at a kiosk, if I need them. I never have to talk to anyone, if I don’t want to. I also select the option not to have my room cleaned each day. I’ll ask someone in the hall for towels if I stay long enough to need them. I’ve wondered if this is easier or harder for them. I try to keep my trash well organized and otherwise make it as easy as I can on the staff after I leave.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
I would want any hotel I stay in to have mandated at least weekly hotel room cleaning, or at least weekly inspection. Too many people are sufficiently dirty that it can easily cause pest issues, as well as other damages.
- crooked-v 4y ago
  I would assume the reputable but cost-cutting hotels would still be doing a full clean between guest visits, just cutting down on the daily room cleaning while a guest is still there.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. But if a hotel starts letting people stay weeks without checking their room, they will inevitably end up with hoarders and people that keep food lying around and then comes cockroaches and rats and odors, etc.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      >Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. The keyword here is "should". I don't have much faith that hotels will actually do this.
      - vkou 4y ago
        Even bad hotels do this, because people lose their shit and do chargebacks if they end up in an uncleaned room. Source: a close friend works at a really bad hotel.
        midoridensha 4y ago
        So if your friend says this, this implies that uncleaned rooms do happen from time to time, right?
        vanviegen 4y ago
        People make mistakes.
        vkou 4y ago
        No, it means that when housekeeping fails to clean a room, for whatever reason, he can't rent it out. The people losing their minds and screaming at him is what happens when something else that isn't quite to their satisfaction happens. Like, say, the hotel requiring a deposit and a major credit card and ID to book a room.
        maccard 4y ago
        This happens in 5 star luxury hotels too. People make mistakes.
        Gigachad 4y ago
        I recently made a bad choice in hotel and ended up at a fairly dodgy looking place, most of the lights in the room didn’t function and the shower didn’t work properly, but it was spotlessly clean so I accepted the mistake.
    - emptybits 4y ago
      > But if a hotel starts letting people stay weeks without checking their room, ... Yet I think people regularly stay for weeks with Airbnb/Vrbo without any host inspection or cleaning. I agree with your conclusion (filthy guests who stay weeks invite pest problems) ... so if the big bad old hotel industry needs to market their advantages, maybe there's an Institutuionally Clean angle.
      - thefounder 4y ago
        That's one of the reasons some people(i.e me) avoid airbnb as much as possible. It seems airbnb is not even cheaper than a hotel (in most cases)
      - mcv 4y ago
        This is really the heart of the issue with all these new "disruptive" industries. They're cheaper because they avoid a lot of the regulation, but all that regulation exists for a reason. Whether you're replacing taxis with Uber or hotels with airbnb, you're saving money by allowing room for all the problems that made the regulation necessary in the first place.
        MarkPNeyer 4y ago
        There’s always a trade off between “cost” and everything else. If you’re wealthy enough they cost doesn’t really matter to you, regulation is fine because it leads to higher quality experiences in general. But if you’re not as wealthy, saving money might be more valuable to you than having a room cleaned daily, or having a really nice tv, or a great mattress, etc. Regulation involves a group of people picking one point on a trade off curve for everyone. Branding and reputation systems allow for multiple different spots on that reputation curve.
        gtowey 4y ago
        > But if you’re not as wealthy, saving money might be more valuable to you than having a room cleaned daily, or having a really nice tv, or a great mattress, etc. The problem is that without regulation there is little incentive for business to be honest about the quality of service you're getting. It becomes a race to the bottom as they charge premium prices for cut-rate quality. It's hard for people to take your business elsewhere when you need a place to sleep and arrive late at night to a room that isn't what you expect. They just have to make their dispute process hard enough to keep customer money. And if you day that's fraud, sure it is, but fraud is only something you can charge a business with because of regulation. IMO regulation isn't perfect, but we should aim to fix it instead of throwing it out the window entirely
    - rob74 4y ago
      Even if there is some food lying around in a room on the 3rd floor, the cockroaches and rats won't just materialize out of thin air. Unless the hygienic conditions are generally bad anyway, but then the hotel has a bigger problem than one dirty room...
      - TeMPOraL 4y ago
        > the cockroaches and rats won't just materialize out of thin air In practice, you can assume they do - it's a simplified but accurate model of reality when you're not researching the life of insects and rodents. Yes, life does not appear "out of thin air", but it constantly tries to get in, will exploit any crack in your defenses or attention to chase after anything that looks or smells like food or safety. It's simpler to just assume annoying critters materialize out of thin air if you leave the right conditions, and ensure those conditions are never present. It's kind of like thermodynamics / statistical physics: the air around you doesn't really have "pressure" or "temperature", but you may just as well assume they're a thing, since the alternative would be to talk about kinematics of air molecules.
        MarkPNeyer 4y ago
        We had a mouse problem once. The ended up being a small hole drilled in the side of the house to install a cat5 cable for a security camera. The hole couldn't have been more than 1.5 cm in diameter, and it had a cat 5 cable running through it - but apparently this was enough space for a mouse to squeeze through.
        thirteenfingers 4y ago
        Obligatory Matthias Wandel video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOx39xJack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOx39xJack
        ghaff 4y ago
        Living in a couple hundred year old house in the country, I find the idea that you'd actually keep mice out of a house like this somewhat hilarious.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      >Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. 'Should be' yes, but you'd be surprised how many don't follow through on this, and not necessarily due to lack of policy. Cleaning staff have very tight schedules, being allocated only a few minutes to completely clean and setup the room for the new guest but if the old guest didn't follow through on the exact checkout time, then that throws of the schedule of the cleaning staff completely, meaning they often cut corners to meet their deadlines.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        This is undoubtedly true, but I don't think it affects the main point. Doing less room-cleaning (or charging more for each time it happens) doesn't mean inter-guest cleaning is affected.
    - snarfy 4y ago
      This is how you get bed bugs.
- yardstick 4y ago
  After the Las Vegas massacre, a lot of hotels will enter even if house keeping is always declined. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-hotels-revise-room-security-measures/#app https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-hotels-revis...
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Especially since the hotel and the hotel’s insurers ended up paying $800M: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-settlement-mgm-settles-las-vegas-shooting-case-for-735-million-to-800-million/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-settlement-m... > Jim Frantz, whose San Diego-based law firm represents another 199 victims including Romo, said Thursday's settlement is a good first step. Now MGM must strengthen the security protocol at all their facilities, he said. >"I would assume a responsible business, after going through something like this, would institute the highest level of security," Frantz said, adding that the company should add metal detectors and Navy SEAL-type security guards. "As long as we have automatic weapons, we've got to be on high alert with all our security."
    - josefx 4y ago
      What the hell, how would they have resolved this if he wasn't living at the hotel? Add mandatory checks to every apartment in the area?
      - hinata08 4y ago
        Guns don't kill people, hotel rooms kill people
      - IncRnd 4y ago
        It's not exactly for that reason. The insurance companies don't want to be liable for a future similar incident, so they are pushing future liability onto hotels that don't do a million things to guard against the last incident from recurring. Then, the hotels put these checks in place, so the insurers won't push liablity costs onto them. I guess it could be called a decrepit spiral of associative risk management.
- mise_en_place 4y ago
  First off roaches are endemic to Las Vegas. Like NYC. I don’t care how clean you think you are, if you don’t have pest control services, you will get roaches. Secondly hotels inside of casinos both outside of and including the strip will regularly clean rooms. They also have regular pest control services, as the rooms are high traffic and constantly occupied.
notyourwork 4y ago
> I also select the option not to have my room cleaned each day. This has always been an option. Put the DND on your door.
- Karunamon 4y ago
  Sort of. I don't like my dwelling with some amounts of my possessions present being rifled through while I am not there, but many motels are now requiring housekeeping every couple of days DND sign or not.
realworldperson 4y ago
- realworldperson 4y ago
  - alphabettsy 4y ago
    You have some good points, but I think you’re being downvoted because this comes across as unnecessarily hostile.
wenc 4y ago
> In some Las Vegas hotels Not just Las Vegas hotels. Any hotel (Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, etc.) with an app that supports digital keys via Bluetooth already have this. I still like to check in at the counter though if it looks like it isn't too busy. I have elite status at these hotels, and they typically hand out free cookies or water at the counter, and I occasionally get a free discretionary room upgrade on the spot.
- dawnerd 4y ago
  They need to let their phone check in work with OTAs. I just stayed at a Hilton and couldn’t use my phone as a key because I booked through hotels.com and the front desk refused to add my hhonors info to set it up. I know you can call in but not something I want to deal with after traveling all day.
  - wenc 4y ago
    I usually book through Concur (corporate booking site) and have never had any trouble. Hotels.com might not be a supported OTA however, since they are a consolidator. You can't even get HHonors points with hotels.com. https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hilton-honors/1887120-earning-points-ota-bookings.html https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hilton-honors/1887120...
    - scarface74 4y ago
      There is a big difference between booking business travel through Concur and using hotels.com. You get all of the benefits of booking directly - points, nights count toward status, your credit card is charged directly by Hilton - ie I get 14 points per dollar by paying with my Amex Hilton Aspire.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        You're essentially saying there are different tiers of travel agents. But you're right. There's no particular disadvantage to me booking Marriott through Amex than directly other than an (expensed) booking fee for work travel.
nunez 4y ago
Marriott does this!
EFreethought 4y ago
Where does this leave people who do not want to use their phones for literally everything? I do not want a lot of apps on my phone, and I do not want to install something just for one trip.
- foepys 4y ago
  I have stayed at multiple hotels where a machine hands out key cards or numeric access codes when you enter your name and date of birth. When you leave you just throw the key card into a box or feed it back into the machine. No smartphone necessary.
  - EFreethought 4y ago
    Thanks for the info. I haven't traveled since COVID, so I don't know how things have changed. I bet hotels made a lot of changes due to COVID. I know this is OT: But I am tired of every business I go to bugging me to use their app for everything. I don't want another app to keep track of, and I do not want to get texts all the time.
    - eybbus 4y ago
      Thankfully some companies just send you a QR-code via email to interact with what ever system they are using. If I remember correctly one of my hotels I used sent me a pin code or such via email and then they had a self service to get a keycard, which used the pin code.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I've rarely seen this as well. Mostly at a Yotel in Manhattan.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Then suffer the inconvenience.
- rajamaka 4y ago
  Honestly it's such a small minority of people that it doesn't make business sense to accomodate for this sort of customer
paganel 4y ago
> I never have to talk to anyone, if I don’t want to. I have seen this attitude at more and more people, where does it come from? Meaning not wanting to talk with other people. It's what makes us humans, talking with other people. The alternative is lots and lots of money paid on psychotherapy and the like further down the road, or worse. Because actively avoiding talking to other people it's like bringing your car for regular checkups every 100k miles instead of ~15-20k miles, which will of course irremediably damage it.
- mym1990 4y ago
  They did say 'if they don't want to'...and how many of us can honestly say that we want to talk to someone ALL OF THE TIME? Talking to someone about checking in for a hotel room, after waiting for 10 minutes in a check in line...is not what I would call a fulfilling experience. Communication does not make us human, plenty of other species communicate...there are far more intricate and unique things that make us what we are. You're equating someone's wish to not have to wait at a check out counter to being anti-social...come on.
  - paganel 4y ago
    > You're equating someone's wish to not have to wait at a check out counter to being anti-social...come on. Yes, 10 minutes waiting in a hotel lobby, which is by definition a societal space, is, well, social. Actively wanting go avoid that is, well, anti-social. Anyway, it's a losing battle at this point.
    - krisoft 4y ago
      > Actively wanting go avoid that is, well, anti-social. Ah the epitome of social interactions. An underpaid and overworked service worker mis-hears my name, pretends to not find me in the system then gives me a card. Well worth queuing for! But you know it is a must, since if I continue the conversation with my travel companion uninterrupted all the way to our room then I am actively tearing apart the fabric of society. > Anyway, it's a losing battle at this point. Battle? Why do you care how others choose to live their life this much? Are they hurting you?
scarface74 4y ago
> In some Las Vegas hotels I no longer need to stop at a counter or stand in a line and it’s 1000x better experience. I can walk directly to my room and scan my phone. I can scan my phone for parking. I can grab extra keys at a kiosk, if I need them. I never have to talk to anyone, if I don’t want to. You can do that with literally any Hilton hotel anywhere in the country whether it’s a Waldorf or Home2Suites or a Tru. You can share your digital key with up to 4 people.
phpisthebest 4y ago
That is like every Hilton Hotel, been doing that for over a year now. Marriot is starting that program as well Soo much nicer
seydor 4y ago
Sounds like an airbnb
francisofascii 4y ago
Hopefully the rental car companies will soon have a similar feature.
- joekrill 4y ago
  They do. And they have for a very long time! At least with Avis I've been doing this for years. The app tells me where my car is located and I just walk to it and the key is in it.
  - krab 4y ago
    Mind blown, thanks! Next time, I'll look for this option! I don't mind hotel check-ins but the car rental process has never, ever been pleasant for me.
matwood 4y ago
Even pre-pandemic I never liked people coming in my room during my stay. First thing I always did when checking in was put the 'DND' placard on my door. All these changes just fit with how I operated for years.
- eastbound 4y ago
  I’ve always thought that hotels mandated daily cleaning just to check you are not performing illegal activities (abduction, drugs, sharing the room, prostitution), having a heart attack or stuck and need help.
  - ejb999 4y ago
    no, not really - they (vegas) did briefly after the mass shooting from the resort window, but before that, and since then I always leave the DND sign up, even if I am there for a week, and never had a problem.
- atkailash 4y ago
  [dead]
gnicholas 4y ago
App-based check-in is great, but I’ve found the phone-as-key system to be lousy when it comes to elevator swiping (to get access to higher floors). What hotels do this well?
areyousure 4y ago
Five years ago, in Las Vegas, it was cause for suspicion if you refused housekeeping for more than one or two days, see eg: https://www.wltx.com/article/news/local/hotels-revise-room-security-measures-in-wake-of-las-vegas-shooting/101-508153273 https://www.wltx.com/article/news/local/hotels-revise-room-s... But people forgot the reason why.
tracker1 4y ago
I'm the opposite... I honestly get frustrated with kiosks, usually the interface staff has is better/faster and I prefer the human contact. Even though I work with technology and generally like computers, I'm the type of person that I'll go to my desktop to do things I could do on my phone, but far more annoying on the phone.
- sixothree 4y ago
  Especially work travel. They always forget to do something important that you need a human for.
akhmatova 4y ago
Unstaffed hotels have a major (in my view, fatal) flaw staring you right in the face: poor security. The one and only time I stayed in such a place - an intruder was caught entering my room and diddling with a phone I left there - and he only got caught because I happened to double back to get something, and just happened to do so while he was in there. Never again. And the best part about staffed hotels? "I never have to use my phone, if I don't want to."
executive 4y ago
You can also pay the kiosk $30 for the rare privilege of early check in. Completely soulless.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

I would want any hotel I stay in to have mandated at least weekly hotel room cleaning, or at least weekly inspection. Too many people are sufficiently dirty that it can easily cause pest issues, as well as other damages.

crooked-v 4y ago
I would assume the reputable but cost-cutting hotels would still be doing a full clean between guest visits, just cutting down on the daily room cleaning while a guest is still there.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. But if a hotel starts letting people stay weeks without checking their room, they will inevitably end up with hoarders and people that keep food lying around and then comes cockroaches and rats and odors, etc.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    >Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. The keyword here is "should". I don't have much faith that hotels will actually do this.
    - vkou 4y ago
      Even bad hotels do this, because people lose their shit and do chargebacks if they end up in an uncleaned room. Source: a close friend works at a really bad hotel.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        So if your friend says this, this implies that uncleaned rooms do happen from time to time, right?
        vanviegen 4y ago
        People make mistakes.
        vkou 4y ago
        No, it means that when housekeeping fails to clean a room, for whatever reason, he can't rent it out. The people losing their minds and screaming at him is what happens when something else that isn't quite to their satisfaction happens. Like, say, the hotel requiring a deposit and a major credit card and ID to book a room.
        maccard 4y ago
        This happens in 5 star luxury hotels too. People make mistakes.
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        I recently made a bad choice in hotel and ended up at a fairly dodgy looking place, most of the lights in the room didn’t function and the shower didn’t work properly, but it was spotlessly clean so I accepted the mistake.
  - emptybits 4y ago
    > But if a hotel starts letting people stay weeks without checking their room, ... Yet I think people regularly stay for weeks with Airbnb/Vrbo without any host inspection or cleaning. I agree with your conclusion (filthy guests who stay weeks invite pest problems) ... so if the big bad old hotel industry needs to market their advantages, maybe there's an Institutuionally Clean angle.
    - thefounder 4y ago
      That's one of the reasons some people(i.e me) avoid airbnb as much as possible. It seems airbnb is not even cheaper than a hotel (in most cases)
    - mcv 4y ago
      This is really the heart of the issue with all these new "disruptive" industries. They're cheaper because they avoid a lot of the regulation, but all that regulation exists for a reason. Whether you're replacing taxis with Uber or hotels with airbnb, you're saving money by allowing room for all the problems that made the regulation necessary in the first place.
      - MarkPNeyer 4y ago
        There’s always a trade off between “cost” and everything else. If you’re wealthy enough they cost doesn’t really matter to you, regulation is fine because it leads to higher quality experiences in general. But if you’re not as wealthy, saving money might be more valuable to you than having a room cleaned daily, or having a really nice tv, or a great mattress, etc. Regulation involves a group of people picking one point on a trade off curve for everyone. Branding and reputation systems allow for multiple different spots on that reputation curve.
        gtowey 4y ago
        > But if you’re not as wealthy, saving money might be more valuable to you than having a room cleaned daily, or having a really nice tv, or a great mattress, etc. The problem is that without regulation there is little incentive for business to be honest about the quality of service you're getting. It becomes a race to the bottom as they charge premium prices for cut-rate quality. It's hard for people to take your business elsewhere when you need a place to sleep and arrive late at night to a room that isn't what you expect. They just have to make their dispute process hard enough to keep customer money. And if you day that's fraud, sure it is, but fraud is only something you can charge a business with because of regulation. IMO regulation isn't perfect, but we should aim to fix it instead of throwing it out the window entirely
  - rob74 4y ago
    Even if there is some food lying around in a room on the 3rd floor, the cockroaches and rats won't just materialize out of thin air. Unless the hygienic conditions are generally bad anyway, but then the hotel has a bigger problem than one dirty room...
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > the cockroaches and rats won't just materialize out of thin air In practice, you can assume they do - it's a simplified but accurate model of reality when you're not researching the life of insects and rodents. Yes, life does not appear "out of thin air", but it constantly tries to get in, will exploit any crack in your defenses or attention to chase after anything that looks or smells like food or safety. It's simpler to just assume annoying critters materialize out of thin air if you leave the right conditions, and ensure those conditions are never present. It's kind of like thermodynamics / statistical physics: the air around you doesn't really have "pressure" or "temperature", but you may just as well assume they're a thing, since the alternative would be to talk about kinematics of air molecules.
      - MarkPNeyer 4y ago
        We had a mouse problem once. The ended up being a small hole drilled in the side of the house to install a cat5 cable for a security camera. The hole couldn't have been more than 1.5 cm in diameter, and it had a cat 5 cable running through it - but apparently this was enough space for a mouse to squeeze through.
        thirteenfingers 4y ago
        Obligatory Matthias Wandel video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOx39xJack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOx39xJack
        ghaff 4y ago
        Living in a couple hundred year old house in the country, I find the idea that you'd actually keep mice out of a house like this somewhat hilarious.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >Every single hotel or motel should be doing full clean between guest visits, otherwise it should not even be allowed to operate. 'Should be' yes, but you'd be surprised how many don't follow through on this, and not necessarily due to lack of policy. Cleaning staff have very tight schedules, being allocated only a few minutes to completely clean and setup the room for the new guest but if the old guest didn't follow through on the exact checkout time, then that throws of the schedule of the cleaning staff completely, meaning they often cut corners to meet their deadlines.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      This is undoubtedly true, but I don't think it affects the main point. Doing less room-cleaning (or charging more for each time it happens) doesn't mean inter-guest cleaning is affected.
  - snarfy 4y ago
    This is how you get bed bugs.
yardstick 4y ago
After the Las Vegas massacre, a lot of hotels will enter even if house keeping is always declined. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-hotels-revise-room-security-measures/#app https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-hotels-revis...
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Especially since the hotel and the hotel’s insurers ended up paying $800M: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-settlement-mgm-settles-las-vegas-shooting-case-for-735-million-to-800-million/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-settlement-m... > Jim Frantz, whose San Diego-based law firm represents another 199 victims including Romo, said Thursday's settlement is a good first step. Now MGM must strengthen the security protocol at all their facilities, he said. >"I would assume a responsible business, after going through something like this, would institute the highest level of security," Frantz said, adding that the company should add metal detectors and Navy SEAL-type security guards. "As long as we have automatic weapons, we've got to be on high alert with all our security."
  - josefx 4y ago
    What the hell, how would they have resolved this if he wasn't living at the hotel? Add mandatory checks to every apartment in the area?
    - hinata08 4y ago
      Guns don't kill people, hotel rooms kill people
    - IncRnd 4y ago
      It's not exactly for that reason. The insurance companies don't want to be liable for a future similar incident, so they are pushing future liability onto hotels that don't do a million things to guard against the last incident from recurring. Then, the hotels put these checks in place, so the insurers won't push liablity costs onto them. I guess it could be called a decrepit spiral of associative risk management.
mise_en_place 4y ago
First off roaches are endemic to Las Vegas. Like NYC. I don’t care how clean you think you are, if you don’t have pest control services, you will get roaches. Secondly hotels inside of casinos both outside of and including the strip will regularly clean rooms. They also have regular pest control services, as the rooms are high traffic and constantly occupied.

notyourwork 4y ago

> I also select the option not to have my room cleaned each day. This has always been an option. Put the DND on your door.

Karunamon 4y ago
Sort of. I don't like my dwelling with some amounts of my possessions present being rifled through while I am not there, but many motels are now requiring housekeeping every couple of days DND sign or not.

realworldperson 4y ago

realworldperson 4y ago
- alphabettsy 4y ago
  You have some good points, but I think you’re being downvoted because this comes across as unnecessarily hostile.

wenc 4y ago

> In some Las Vegas hotels Not just Las Vegas hotels. Any hotel (Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, etc.) with an app that supports digital keys via Bluetooth already have this. I still like to check in at the counter though if it looks like it isn't too busy. I have elite status at these hotels, and they typically hand out free cookies or water at the counter, and I occasionally get a free discretionary room upgrade on the spot.

dawnerd 4y ago
They need to let their phone check in work with OTAs. I just stayed at a Hilton and couldn’t use my phone as a key because I booked through hotels.com and the front desk refused to add my hhonors info to set it up. I know you can call in but not something I want to deal with after traveling all day.
- wenc 4y ago
  I usually book through Concur (corporate booking site) and have never had any trouble. Hotels.com might not be a supported OTA however, since they are a consolidator. You can't even get HHonors points with hotels.com. https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hilton-honors/1887120-earning-points-ota-bookings.html https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hilton-honors/1887120...
  - scarface74 4y ago
    There is a big difference between booking business travel through Concur and using hotels.com. You get all of the benefits of booking directly - points, nights count toward status, your credit card is charged directly by Hilton - ie I get 14 points per dollar by paying with my Amex Hilton Aspire.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      You're essentially saying there are different tiers of travel agents. But you're right. There's no particular disadvantage to me booking Marriott through Amex than directly other than an (expensed) booking fee for work travel.

nunez 4y ago

Marriott does this!

EFreethought 4y ago

Where does this leave people who do not want to use their phones for literally everything? I do not want a lot of apps on my phone, and I do not want to install something just for one trip.

foepys 4y ago
I have stayed at multiple hotels where a machine hands out key cards or numeric access codes when you enter your name and date of birth. When you leave you just throw the key card into a box or feed it back into the machine. No smartphone necessary.
- EFreethought 4y ago
  Thanks for the info. I haven't traveled since COVID, so I don't know how things have changed. I bet hotels made a lot of changes due to COVID. I know this is OT: But I am tired of every business I go to bugging me to use their app for everything. I don't want another app to keep track of, and I do not want to get texts all the time.
  - eybbus 4y ago
    Thankfully some companies just send you a QR-code via email to interact with what ever system they are using. If I remember correctly one of my hotels I used sent me a pin code or such via email and then they had a self service to get a keycard, which used the pin code.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I've rarely seen this as well. Mostly at a Yotel in Manhattan.
scarface74 4y ago
Then suffer the inconvenience.
rajamaka 4y ago
Honestly it's such a small minority of people that it doesn't make business sense to accomodate for this sort of customer

paganel 4y ago

> I never have to talk to anyone, if I don’t want to. I have seen this attitude at more and more people, where does it come from? Meaning not wanting to talk with other people. It's what makes us humans, talking with other people. The alternative is lots and lots of money paid on psychotherapy and the like further down the road, or worse. Because actively avoiding talking to other people it's like bringing your car for regular checkups every 100k miles instead of ~15-20k miles, which will of course irremediably damage it.

mym1990 4y ago
They did say 'if they don't want to'...and how many of us can honestly say that we want to talk to someone ALL OF THE TIME? Talking to someone about checking in for a hotel room, after waiting for 10 minutes in a check in line...is not what I would call a fulfilling experience. Communication does not make us human, plenty of other species communicate...there are far more intricate and unique things that make us what we are. You're equating someone's wish to not have to wait at a check out counter to being anti-social...come on.
- paganel 4y ago
  > You're equating someone's wish to not have to wait at a check out counter to being anti-social...come on. Yes, 10 minutes waiting in a hotel lobby, which is by definition a societal space, is, well, social. Actively wanting go avoid that is, well, anti-social. Anyway, it's a losing battle at this point.
  - krisoft 4y ago
    > Actively wanting go avoid that is, well, anti-social. Ah the epitome of social interactions. An underpaid and overworked service worker mis-hears my name, pretends to not find me in the system then gives me a card. Well worth queuing for! But you know it is a must, since if I continue the conversation with my travel companion uninterrupted all the way to our room then I am actively tearing apart the fabric of society. > Anyway, it's a losing battle at this point. Battle? Why do you care how others choose to live their life this much? Are they hurting you?

scarface74 4y ago

> In some Las Vegas hotels I no longer need to stop at a counter or stand in a line and it’s 1000x better experience. I can walk directly to my room and scan my phone. I can scan my phone for parking. I can grab extra keys at a kiosk, if I need them. I never have to talk to anyone, if I don’t want to. You can do that with literally any Hilton hotel anywhere in the country whether it’s a Waldorf or Home2Suites or a Tru. You can share your digital key with up to 4 people.

phpisthebest 4y ago

That is like every Hilton Hotel, been doing that for over a year now. Marriot is starting that program as well Soo much nicer

seydor 4y ago

Sounds like an airbnb

francisofascii 4y ago

Hopefully the rental car companies will soon have a similar feature.

joekrill 4y ago
They do. And they have for a very long time! At least with Avis I've been doing this for years. The app tells me where my car is located and I just walk to it and the key is in it.
- krab 4y ago
  Mind blown, thanks! Next time, I'll look for this option! I don't mind hotel check-ins but the car rental process has never, ever been pleasant for me.

matwood 4y ago

Even pre-pandemic I never liked people coming in my room during my stay. First thing I always did when checking in was put the 'DND' placard on my door. All these changes just fit with how I operated for years.

eastbound 4y ago
I’ve always thought that hotels mandated daily cleaning just to check you are not performing illegal activities (abduction, drugs, sharing the room, prostitution), having a heart attack or stuck and need help.
- ejb999 4y ago
  no, not really - they (vegas) did briefly after the mass shooting from the resort window, but before that, and since then I always leave the DND sign up, even if I am there for a week, and never had a problem.
atkailash 4y ago
[dead]

gnicholas 4y ago

App-based check-in is great, but I’ve found the phone-as-key system to be lousy when it comes to elevator swiping (to get access to higher floors). What hotels do this well?

areyousure 4y ago

Five years ago, in Las Vegas, it was cause for suspicion if you refused housekeeping for more than one or two days, see eg: https://www.wltx.com/article/news/local/hotels-revise-room-security-measures-in-wake-of-las-vegas-shooting/101-508153273 https://www.wltx.com/article/news/local/hotels-revise-room-s... But people forgot the reason why.

tracker1 4y ago

I'm the opposite... I honestly get frustrated with kiosks, usually the interface staff has is better/faster and I prefer the human contact. Even though I work with technology and generally like computers, I'm the type of person that I'll go to my desktop to do things I could do on my phone, but far more annoying on the phone.

sixothree 4y ago
Especially work travel. They always forget to do something important that you need a human for.

akhmatova 4y ago

Unstaffed hotels have a major (in my view, fatal) flaw staring you right in the face: poor security. The one and only time I stayed in such a place - an intruder was caught entering my room and diddling with a phone I left there - and he only got caught because I happened to double back to get something, and just happened to do so while he was in there. Never again. And the best part about staffed hotels? "I never have to use my phone, if I don't want to."

executive 4y ago

You can also pay the kiosk $30 for the rare privilege of early check in. Completely soulless.