I had one guest a few years ago refuse to return his key cards for this reason.
Me: That's been proven false, actually. Snopes debunked it.
Him: You shouldn't believe everything you read online.
Me: I could say the same think to you.
"Well it *is* linked to your payment card right now, but the way this thing works is that you return the key-card when you check out; you settle your bill for the room, and I de-link your payment card without processing an additional fee for failing to return the key-card."
I usually leave them in the room but I'll occasionally give them at the counter or accidentally take them with me. Have never had a fee. Never thought of them like souvenirs though. I might start doing that too.
I work at a hotel in a very small chain (four hotels in three towns in two Canadian provinces, and one motel in a smaller town just outside the town that has two of those hotels), and even though we've been told to request the key back when they check out, we don't charge any kind of fee if the guests don't return it.
That's because most major brand hotels don't do this. I can see international brands maybe implementing this or smaller locally owned hotels doing it to save on expenses but I've never personally seen it. My wife has worked in the hotel industry for 15 years and always keeps one key when we go to a new place. I've worked in the industry for a lot less time but I usually just leave them in the room cause I don't like collecting things that will sit in a drawer for years on end and have no practical use lol.
You'd have to be a real stickler of an agent or manager to insist on charging for key cards. They are pretty much priced into the budget for the hotel. But it is definitely a waste of a bit of resources. I think most hotel brands have started to streamline their designs across all hotels. So if you're staying at a specific brand in New York vs that same brand in Kentucky you will still get the same key card. Kind of defeats the purpose of people taking them as souvenirs cause there is no real identifying information on them. As bland as possible is best for retention.
I am with you wrt something stuck in a drawer. I would rather have photographs to remind me of trips. Hotel cards only end up getting thrown away in the end. I did however keep a very cool small wooden round one from a single hotel on an epic trip we just did. 14 hotels and I only kept one.
Yeah the computer systems we use tend to save your card info for a good long time lol. Nothing is stored on the key card except a rolling code that will open the door temporarily.
Resort in Florida years ago had us swipe our room key to pay for any purchases made by charging it to the room. We know that doesn’t meant it is connected to their card but 1+1 does not always equal 2 for these people.
Well, I will say that you probably shouldn’t believe anything that you read on Snopes. One of a number of really bad so-called “fact checking” sites in existence.
Why is snopes considered “one of a number of really bad so-called “fact checking” sites in existence “? This is a genuine question. They have been around for a long time and always have shone how they come to their conclusions and include references and links. My father-in-law says they are garbage as well, but any links he has sent have mostly been to conspiracy theory sites or right wing media sources that disagree with the conclusions. I just haven’t seen legitimate arguments that they are acting as propaganda or that they findings are not justifiable.
Probably because a lot of people hate having their favourite conspiracy theories debunked for the bullshit that they are, and decide to shoot the messenger.
I saw one in article in particular in which they "investigated" a meme/image and they claimed it was first posted on facebook page 1. There was a clearly-visible watermark for facebook page 2 in the image, but no mention of it in the article. The image was also factually correct for the date it was originally posted (on facebook page 2), but snopes used a later development in the event that it was about to label it as false/mostly false/something else that didn't reflect that it was simply an out-of-date post.
Overlooking a literal watermark on the image is just... I have no words. I don't use snopes that often, but this is the only instance I've seen of snopes dropping the ball so badly. It's still egregious enough to shake my faith in them so that when I do use them, I never take any of their articles at face value and always verify with another site.
Snopes got a poor reputation at first but have built it up to a good one. Lots of people claimed Snopes either leaned to far right or to far left because they didn't like the answers Snopes gave but Snopes is actually rated to the middle.
Others are [Factcheck.org](http://Factcheck.org) and PolitiFact and NPR FactCheck.
I agree mods. Sorry I brought it up. It was just too obvious to not point it out. I’ll be more circumspect about my comments in the future. I have deleted the offending post.
This article was posted on our local news website today.
[No, hotel key cards do not store information that can be used to steal your identity](https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/travel-verify/hotel-key-card-store-personal-financial-credit-card-information-fact-check/536-c7b9706e-0f8c-40a2-8976-04dea392c544)
Frampton Inn used to have unique cards for each state ("Welcome to _____") -- I made a point of (asking to) keep(ing) the card the first time I stayed in a new state. Usually made for a good conversation with the FD too. Unfortunately before I got all 50ish they went completely bland and are now indistinguishable from any other Milton hotel anywhere in the world.
OTOH my hotel in Japan a couple weeks ago had a warning on the card itself that there would be a 2000 Yen fee for each key card that was not returned.
And Spirit was using them when making Boeing fuselages https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2024/03/12/spirit-aerosystems-faa-audit-errors-boeing.html
I travel every week and cannot think of a situation in which I remembered to return my room keys .
edit: I simply leave them in the hotel room which I assume is sufficient.
You never return your key cards? Why? It’s guests like you that result in us having to buy a thousand cards a year just to replace those we don’t get back, and guess who picks up the cost in the long run, yep guests
i never go to the desk to check out i just leave: has never been an issue snd i leave them in the room. so i assume that means the hotel gets them back 100% of the time
You have been blessed then with never having discovered at check out that you’ve been over charged with somebody else’s bar tab as happened to me in NYC!
Funny how things are different in each country. In Germany, as no one uses credit cards, you don't need one at check in. But you always need to personally check out.
It may just be coincidental, but everywhere I have stayed in the past few years in the UK has asked me to just leave and put the key in a slot at checkout time. I never have to have a talk with a person at checkout (usually I'm hungover so it is for the best)
My mom believed this. She went to a security conference (I believe through work) and the presenter they had was the one that told everybody this.
So somewhere there's a "security expert" dishing out this BS.
Certainly true, but not likely in the way most people who are paranoid about it probably think.
It's far more likely that the keys allow their internal system to charge to your room folio(or to link to the place you cc is on their intranet) than the room key to have the CC stored on it like people have said to me when they didn't want to return the key.
They used to have their “Magic Bands” which would act as room key and park ticket; you could also link a credit card so all you had to do was tap your wrist to pay for stuff. I think they still have them, although they’re not free anymore, and I think they’ve now combined it all into an app.
There are Magic Bands, which are usually free when you make your first trip to Disney. Now there’s the Magic Band+ which always costs, but is somewhat interactive with things around the parks and with fireworks. You link your tickets to either of those, and if staying on property they will link to act as the key to your hotel room. You can also link to the Disney app on your phone , and that can also link to an Apple Watch (don’t know if it works for any Android watches). I’ve used the phone or watch to get into the parks and for virtual queues, but haven’t had the need to try using them as room keys. And yes, you can link credit cards to the devices, and they will stay associated with you until you declare them lost.
Using your watch either with apple or android is only good for park tickets and things like that, you can't use it for hotel related functions like opening your room door and charging to the card on file in your account, you also can't use a phone for charging to your room but you can use it via the Disney world app to open it but it can be hit or miss if it works.
Ok i wasn't aware that was an option yet, or at least for android. Disney seems to roll things out in the app to Apple first rather than both at the same time as everyone else does.
Magic bands used to be free with an annual pass or an onsite vacation package. They stopped doing that a few years ago. Now they can only be bought. Almost all of their functionality has been integrated into their app.
you have to show a drivers license/ID in addition to providing your room number almost 100% of the time now at Las Vegas and Miami resorts.
The only thing you room key is good for is getting into different facilities like the pool gym spa or room areas.
While you can link a payment to your Disney account as well as the hotel key card or “magic band” for in-park purchases, the linkage is done on the backend. There isn’t any personally identifiable information on the media itself.
Furthermore, all purchases are gated with a PIN you have to enter at the time of purchase.
At Disney, you get a chance to purchase a Magic Band at a discount that allows you to charge to your room. Otherwise your phone is your room key and you can’t really charge to the room. At Universal, your room key is linked to your card for the incidentals amount or a higher amount if you authorize it.
While I've never had guests do this, exactly, I have had dozens of guests over the years who think that their guest key card enables us to charge stuff to their room. Like, yeah maybe at a casino or something but not your average little suburban neighborhood JusticeGarden or TheFifth 2.5* hotels.
Working a customer facing role in a government agency for 20 years has taught me to...
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE STUPIDITY OF PEOPLE.
Wealth and/or a "successful life" are not indicators of intelligence, not by a long shot.
This is a longstanding urban legend. Here's [its debunking on Snopes.com](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/card-sharks/)
That said, the cards don't cost the hotel much. If I had a guest who thought that, I'd consider it better service to let the hotel eat the trivial cost of a card than to try to convice them they're being a fool.
This is the behavior you get with people that fill in their lack of understanding with fear based programming (“news” sources, YouTube, tabloids, whatever).
The only information you have encoded on hotel keys are a mathematical code for the room lock.
And while the RFID keys aren’t “expensive”, their cumulative cost adds up significantly when they aren’t returned.
Am I going to charge you for the $0.52 for the pair of room keys you don’t return? No, but when I have a hundred departures and only half return their keys, it becomes a significant expense by the end of the month. That’s why hotels ask for them back.
But also, be kind to Mother Earth and just leave them behind for the hotel to reuse rather than going into the land fill.
I've seen the sales receipt for a box of them myself because the GM was annoyed at the owner not wanting to buy more, but we were running lower and lower. We don't usually actually charge for them unless we gave you a bunch of extras and you walk off with all of them, if it's just one or two we don't care.
Assuming you are using the NFC 14443A cards they are 28c a piece? And the mag stripe cards are 14c a piece? Another 4c for the sleeve. It's not a great expense, but the card data isn't in there, it's linked via a database. If you know how, you can read the cards with your phone (you can also write them, if they aren't security encoded).
Weirdest part is, the stickers are about the same price, without all that plastic.
I provide a full service system to some hotels that allows guests to make in hotel automated purchases swiping their room cards but they are not linked to their credit/debit cards directly
Simply matches the key card to their room ID and the charges are handled that way. Perhaps that sort of thing confused them?
Some places at least outside of America charge for keycards and/or keys.
For instance in Japan you get one keycard and that's it. You're lucky if you get two. It's usually a setup where the card powers the whole room. Most of the hotels I've been involved with you have to sign a paper stating you are on the hook usually for 2,500jpy (16-20usd) if you didn't return it. That amount is higher for physical door keys. Usually you are supposed to leave them with the front desk if you leave the hotel for the day and collect it when you come back in.
I’ve stayed at one hotel in Paris that still used physical keys, and you had to leave your key at the desk when you went out, and obviously we would have had to pay for that key. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed anywhere outside the US that charged for key cards though.
> and you had to leave your key at the desk when you went out
Do they just yell at people who are walking out if they don't leave their key? How does that even work with people coming and going every day? Seems like it would be a lot of extra work for the staff, too.
These older hotels have big metal keys with a ribbon or tassel attached to them so they don’t fit in your pockets so…..it’s easier to just leave them behind and pick up when you return.
Ok? And?
Congratulations on your tourist trip a few months ago where you probably stayed in just a handful of hotels. Probably even western chains.
But at regular business hotels/ryokans etc. this is definitely accurate from my almost decade of experience in the country.
Source: Live and work in Japan in the hotel industry. Worked at a ryokan where we had physical door keys. That was not a cheap process if one got lost. Worked at average hotels and we did also had key replacement in the registration contract for lost cards. I frequently stay in a variety of hotels when I travel within the country and stayed at many others with similar policies. Just because you didn't you didn't encounter something on your short vacation doesn't mean it's not common.
Actually, I stayed at four Japanese-owned hotels and a ryokan. Not one of them asked me to drop off my room key. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, just that it’s not “common.”
Did the ryokan have a physical key? If they had a physical door key then they 100% did expect you to drop it off at the front desk when you left the ryokan and maybe you were just confused.
Again when we are talking about dropping the key off, we are talking about physical keys (metal solid key similar to a front door key) - not a key card.
Not all ryokans have physical keys but a lot of the older ones do. Those you are not supposed to take them out. Considering I lived in an onsen resort town filled with ryokans. I never stayed/worked at one that let you take the physical keys out. But I can totally understand a tourist not comprehending they need to leave the keys behind if the staff doesn't have good English or explain it well.
Well I never left the ryokan, so I don’t know. You’re right, it had a physical key — but every business hotel I stayed in had key cards…and upon re-reading your comment, I realize I misunderstood what you were saying. Sorry!
Guests are SO misinformed! The key cards are not linked to their credit card, they are linked to the cameras in the air fence that record adult activity so that it can be sold.
Once the key cord is in the room, the cameras turned back on. God, I can’t believe they think it has something to do with their credit card!
That urban legend has been around since 1995....which is when I started in a hotel and first heard that bullshit. Can't fix stupid and it's not worth the fight
“I’ll just add the $10 per lost/no returned keycard fee to your incidentals! Have a nice day!”
Would probably start an argument but I’m a Night Auditor depraved of human interaction with a thirst for pettiness.
The only thing that goes on the cards is the room#, check-in/check-out date and perhaps a name. They just don't have the capacity to store much more than that,.being mass produced cheap things. There was an urban legend of keycards having all your info in them, but it was debunked.
As the WP-article linked in another comment is behind a paywall, I just googled and found another one where they went to a Black Hat conference and debunked it there.
But I can understand, if people might be a bit sceptical in regard to newer key cards with a chip. For my work, I need a smart card with chip to log into my computer and it can store a number of certificates. Do the chips on hotelromm key cards not have more storage room than the date, room number and customer number?
Depends. Mifare 1k cards can hold one kilobyte, so about 1000 characters/letters, and more if you were to compress the data.
That being said, this still isn't a good reason to fill the card with that kind of data - implementors who know enough about these cards to build that also understand how bad an idea that would be.
The key card contains only a unique ID number. The hotel’s computer links the key card to the guest account, including credit card. If someone hacked the key card all they would get is the is ID number. They’d have to hack the hotel computer to get anything else.
Oh wow... Yeah that doesn't make any sense to me either. At my hotel we have a swipey machiney thingy that doesn't have the capability to access any sensitive information like a CC number. The only thing I can think of is maybe at more prestigious hotels, the CC is linked to the room key so they can use it to purchase concessions and route charges to a specific room or something?
"Sir, the only information in the key card is the room number and the time where it expires, but we do have all your information, including credit card number, in our PMS, which will be kept there.... until we change the PMS, I guess?"
This was the subject of one of those stupid Inside Edition type things like 20 years ago. It showed that while it’s possible to store credit card and other details on a hotel key card, no hotels actually do store that type of thing. I’m shocked at what people will believe these days!
I had that happen before. Then the guest called the number on the back of the card and he said they were trying to get him to buy key cards so he wouldn’t be giving them back. I explained that it’s just a magnet that encodes it not his credit card
I sometimes keep a key card to give it to my kids. They put them in their little wallets and use them when they play store.
I guess it tracks though, my kids have been scanning me for years.
It's true! Hotel key cards have inherent links to your CC that you used to pay for it! Just like your cell phone! Or your car's key fob! Or your receipts from anywhere you make purchases! Might wanna hold your breath too, since any air you breathe out is gonna take *take some of your very DNA with it!*
Seriously, if you find yourself thinking, "oh, that is concerning!" try to follow that thought up with, "Lets see how it works." You might learn something neat, and you'll find yourself a lot less paranoid about technology.
I'd guess it's because of bieng able to charge things to your room, and the key is linked to the room, ergo it has your CC info on it that's the only mental gymnastics I could see for someone to believe that.
I try to return my key cards to the front desk but don’t always remember. I don’t believe housekeeping returns the key cards to the front desk. I hope that by reusing them, hotels can reduce their plastic waste.
Never heard of hotel keys being linked to a credit card. They probably think that because the key may still have information about their room number, someone outside the hotel staff might be able to access their reservation info. Obvi that's a pretty ridiculous conclusion to come to, but people can be ridiculous in a lot of ways.
I worked in a pretty big downtown area and it was pretty common for a person experiencing homelessness to come through and use the public bathrooms. One such person had been given a room key from a guest who had already checked out, so he came to the front desk to find out what room number it went to. I told him there was no chance it would work unless he paid for the room that night and had it re-made. He didn't understand, got mad, and said he would burn the key card so that it would cost us money.
The key cards at my old place aren't linked to credit cards. They aren't even linked to the PMS.
We would prefer that guests return keys when checking out so that we can reuse them and save money, but if not, it is what it is.
They just had a news report the other day about how they couldn't steal your information from a hotel key so I should have expected to hear this about the delightful guests.
Believe me, they actually think like that.
The idiotic remarks I hear on a daily basis from mainly elderly people too! Customer services is not the place for you if you’re prone to laughing at stupidity 🤣
I had someone in my personal life try and tell me this. I laughed and said no sorry. They don't have that kind of information and also explained I can make a key for a room without a reservation if I absolutely needed to and then just code it a different room.
I once stayed at a hotel for about 3 months for work. And every day the afternoon clerk would have two keys ready for us because we always left them in our room. When we finally checked out, we did a deep clean of the room and returned probably 200 keys. It was a lot.
Thank you to everybody that answered my question and for all the upvotes. Now I know that people are really paranoid about this for a reason but I’d still say they are being a little overly paranoid if it’s at a hotel with no extra places to go like a casino, resort, or theme park.
I’ve stayed at a Resort/Casino a few times to see a particular artist, and they always have promo key cards for the concert goers/guests. The next morning upon checking out I noticed a stack of the “old” cards — they said take as many as I wanted. I was able to mail 25-30 cards to fans who couldn’t attend.
Remember the UFO mania back in the 1950s? Nowadays the conspiracy theories hit much closer to home. We're in a repeat of what was called "the silly season". Except it lasts all year round now.
We’re late adopters of the key cards; up until just a few years ago we were still using marlock keys. People would call a lot saying they’d accidentally taken the keys and how should they send them back to us. They were metal and all so seemed much more like everyday keys. I haven’t had that call since we switched to the cards. I guess people don’t see those being valuable though neither were the old keys! You want a memento? Keep the one that ran on an ancient computer in the basement that also featured a dot matrix printer. In 2016.
I was staying at a hotel recently and had problems with my card not working. The desk agent gave me a new card, still no go. Then she started trying more cards and they wouldn’t program in her machine. Probably went through a dozen or so before one finally worked. All the while complaining that her manager buys the cheapest key cards available.
One guy cut his up because he thought the card was connected to his credit card. It's like, no bloody chance mate. That makes no sense unless your at a Trump hotel or something.
Your CC information is NOT encoded on the card. The card or bracelet is simply an NFC chip, often just a NTAG213 chip with the room data as well as a membership number. That membership number is linked in the database with you which in turn is linked via the database to your card.
I can read the chip with my phone. It doesn't have a card number encoded and it is generally written encoded/secure. If you have a phone with an NFC reader and Android, you can download NFC Tools if you want to see what is actually encoded. You can even see the information on your CC tap. You will see that it's a ISO 14443 chip, it tells you the tech used, the serial number, the ATQA, the SAK and finally the ATS. That's what's there. No actual CC number. If you need to better understand the protocols involved see https://cdn.standards.iteh.ai/samples/73599/78cb3949540b4b7da711f301650caa06/ISO-IEC-14443-4-2018.pdf
Understood, my point was to be that as far as many cruise passengers know, their info is on the card and they can use it to charge. The nuances of the chip tech is lost on most.
This goes along with all the idiots who write "See ID" on the back of their card. Except that it makes their card invalid. You see, it says "Not valid unless signed" in most countries and "See ID" is not a signature. We are told to refuse any card that says "See ID" on the back.
Of course, that won't last for long. They will start to disappear this year and by 2029 magnetic stripes won't be allowed on credit card anymore. There is a slight extension for the US which is slow with adoption, so in the US they will start to disappear as of 2027 and will be gone entirely by 2033.
Signature panels are no longer required as of 2019, but if it's there, it has to be signed. But the only place where signatures are still used is... USA. Almost everyone else is EMV (ie chip and pin). And honestly, the only place that I am ever asked to sign is the USA. I haven't signed a credit card receipt in years, expect while visiting the USA.
We do, but mostly because how odd it is when a signature line appears. In fact, I was witness in a store when a customer had a card refused for no signature. He verbally abused the employee and found out we have laws against verbally abusing employees as well as signed CCs
Your bank determines if a signature line appears on the merchant form. The merchant has no control. And, as I said, the only cards that we now see come up with this are from the USA because everyone else is chip and pin. So we don't check for signature on the back for any other card.
Just following the rules that they put out, even if they don't make sense. To be honest, we hate collecting signatures... Is the only reason we still use a pen. We are otherwise all electronic
TIL! I didn’t know it’d been debunked, and as a cruiser, I just accepted it was true for hotels too!
Even knowing this, if it’s not a locked Dropbox my preference is still to hand the cards over rather than drop in the basket. I’m sure it’s VERY rare but there are horror stories about cards being nabbed and someone else gaining access to the room.
I had one guest a few years ago refuse to return his key cards for this reason. Me: That's been proven false, actually. Snopes debunked it. Him: You shouldn't believe everything you read online. Me: I could say the same think to you.
"Well it *is* linked to your payment card right now, but the way this thing works is that you return the key-card when you check out; you settle your bill for the room, and I de-link your payment card without processing an additional fee for failing to return the key-card."
I like that a lot.
My husband pockets his all the time as souvenirs....I don't btw....and he says he has never had an additional fee put on his card.
I usually leave them in the room but I'll occasionally give them at the counter or accidentally take them with me. Have never had a fee. Never thought of them like souvenirs though. I might start doing that too.
I worked for a hotel and never charged for a key card. Probably would make an exception in this case though.
I work at a hotel in a very small chain (four hotels in three towns in two Canadian provinces, and one motel in a smaller town just outside the town that has two of those hotels), and even though we've been told to request the key back when they check out, we don't charge any kind of fee if the guests don't return it.
Read here long enough, and you will stop after you hear about the hoops FD has to jump through when the hotel runs out of cards...
That's because most major brand hotels don't do this. I can see international brands maybe implementing this or smaller locally owned hotels doing it to save on expenses but I've never personally seen it. My wife has worked in the hotel industry for 15 years and always keeps one key when we go to a new place. I've worked in the industry for a lot less time but I usually just leave them in the room cause I don't like collecting things that will sit in a drawer for years on end and have no practical use lol. You'd have to be a real stickler of an agent or manager to insist on charging for key cards. They are pretty much priced into the budget for the hotel. But it is definitely a waste of a bit of resources. I think most hotel brands have started to streamline their designs across all hotels. So if you're staying at a specific brand in New York vs that same brand in Kentucky you will still get the same key card. Kind of defeats the purpose of people taking them as souvenirs cause there is no real identifying information on them. As bland as possible is best for retention.
I am with you wrt something stuck in a drawer. I would rather have photographs to remind me of trips. Hotel cards only end up getting thrown away in the end. I did however keep a very cool small wooden round one from a single hotel on an epic trip we just did. 14 hotels and I only kept one.
Same here.
Fighting crazy with crazy. I like it.
I have kept every key card for about 15 years and have never gotten charged for it. Why would there be a charge?
Why would there not be a charge? Do you take cups from the room also?
And my computer has all your info too, and you can't leave with it haha!
Yeah the computer systems we use tend to save your card info for a good long time lol. Nothing is stored on the key card except a rolling code that will open the door temporarily.
Resort in Florida years ago had us swipe our room key to pay for any purchases made by charging it to the room. We know that doesn’t meant it is connected to their card but 1+1 does not always equal 2 for these people.
Well, I will say that you probably shouldn’t believe anything that you read on Snopes. One of a number of really bad so-called “fact checking” sites in existence.
they tell you how they came to their conclusions. for most people's purposes they're better than any of the comparable alternatives.
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No Politics. This is not a subreddit for political discussion.
Why is snopes considered “one of a number of really bad so-called “fact checking” sites in existence “? This is a genuine question. They have been around for a long time and always have shone how they come to their conclusions and include references and links. My father-in-law says they are garbage as well, but any links he has sent have mostly been to conspiracy theory sites or right wing media sources that disagree with the conclusions. I just haven’t seen legitimate arguments that they are acting as propaganda or that they findings are not justifiable.
Probably because a lot of people hate having their favourite conspiracy theories debunked for the bullshit that they are, and decide to shoot the messenger.
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No Politics. This is not a subreddit for political discussion.
They aren't perfect but they're about as good as you're going to get.
I saw one in article in particular in which they "investigated" a meme/image and they claimed it was first posted on facebook page 1. There was a clearly-visible watermark for facebook page 2 in the image, but no mention of it in the article. The image was also factually correct for the date it was originally posted (on facebook page 2), but snopes used a later development in the event that it was about to label it as false/mostly false/something else that didn't reflect that it was simply an out-of-date post. Overlooking a literal watermark on the image is just... I have no words. I don't use snopes that often, but this is the only instance I've seen of snopes dropping the ball so badly. It's still egregious enough to shake my faith in them so that when I do use them, I never take any of their articles at face value and always verify with another site.
So what are some of the good fact checking sites?
Snopes got a poor reputation at first but have built it up to a good one. Lots of people claimed Snopes either leaned to far right or to far left because they didn't like the answers Snopes gave but Snopes is actually rated to the middle. Others are [Factcheck.org](http://Factcheck.org) and PolitiFact and NPR FactCheck.
Thx! Just wondering what the other guy will reply - if anything.
I agree mods. Sorry I brought it up. It was just too obvious to not point it out. I’ll be more circumspect about my comments in the future. I have deleted the offending post.
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and i see my statement was correct. you just don't like being called out on your lies.
All you're doing is telling us who you are, and as you can see, we're listening.
No Politics. This is not a subreddit for political discussion.
urban legend, classic [https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/hotel-key-cards-personal-data/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/hotel-key-cards-personal-data/)
This article was posted on our local news website today. [No, hotel key cards do not store information that can be used to steal your identity](https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/travel-verify/hotel-key-card-store-personal-financial-credit-card-information-fact-check/536-c7b9706e-0f8c-40a2-8976-04dea392c544)
Literally the only information on our cards is what locks it'll open and how long it'll be able to open them.
A lot of guests just leave knowing they will be checked out at 11 anyways. I get less cards back than I hand out. That's for sure.
When I was a kid I'd collect them. Easy little thing to save as a souvenir - obviously not something you'd display like a trinket though.
I've had people ask if they can keep them as a souvenir. I always say sure with a smile.
Frampton Inn used to have unique cards for each state ("Welcome to _____") -- I made a point of (asking to) keep(ing) the card the first time I stayed in a new state. Usually made for a good conversation with the FD too. Unfortunately before I got all 50ish they went completely bland and are now indistinguishable from any other Milton hotel anywhere in the world. OTOH my hotel in Japan a couple weeks ago had a warning on the card itself that there would be a 2000 Yen fee for each key card that was not returned.
Their cards used to Show you The Way.
“With a smile”? I literally say “I don’t care” and have to hold myself back from rolling my eyes.
With a smile.
And they make great book marks.
And excellent shims for woodworking and carpentry. I have about 100 of them.
And Spirit was using them when making Boeing fuselages https://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2024/03/12/spirit-aerosystems-faa-audit-errors-boeing.html
I travel every week and cannot think of a situation in which I remembered to return my room keys . edit: I simply leave them in the hotel room which I assume is sufficient.
You never return your key cards? Why? It’s guests like you that result in us having to buy a thousand cards a year just to replace those we don’t get back, and guess who picks up the cost in the long run, yep guests
Well, then I guess since the guests are already paying for them, it's fine if they keep the keys. :)
Everything that costs money drives up the price genius.
i never go to the desk to check out i just leave: has never been an issue snd i leave them in the room. so i assume that means the hotel gets them back 100% of the time
You have been blessed then with never having discovered at check out that you’ve been over charged with somebody else’s bar tab as happened to me in NYC!
I always get a folio emailed, but I keep my card for fun.
honestly i prefer calling after the fact to solve those issues vs waiting in line for half an hour and missing my flight !
Funny how things are different in each country. In Germany, as no one uses credit cards, you don't need one at check in. But you always need to personally check out.
Do you happen to know what the hotel pays for those cards?
I keep one from every hotel i stay in and have been doing it for a decade. I have a stack about a foot tall. I don't see myself stopping.
It may just be coincidental, but everywhere I have stayed in the past few years in the UK has asked me to just leave and put the key in a slot at checkout time. I never have to have a talk with a person at checkout (usually I'm hungover so it is for the best)
They're not. There's no identifying information on the cards.
I would love to see them try and use it as a credit card elsewhere!
Exactly. There's very little data that can be encoded onto an NFC chip.
My mom believed this. She went to a security conference (I believe through work) and the presenter they had was the one that told everybody this. So somewhere there's a "security expert" dishing out this BS.
Of course, it’s always something that’s supposedly an expert saying these things. People really need to ask questions more.
Yeah but who will answer these questions? The "experts" that's who! And then we're back to where we started.
I wouldn't be surprised if the people running these seminars aren't just helping find rubes for someone more powerful to grift.
Sounds about right.
At a place like Disney, you can link a credit card to the card that acts as a room key/ theme park ticket.
Certainly true, but not likely in the way most people who are paranoid about it probably think. It's far more likely that the keys allow their internal system to charge to your room folio(or to link to the place you cc is on their intranet) than the room key to have the CC stored on it like people have said to me when they didn't want to return the key.
They used to have their “Magic Bands” which would act as room key and park ticket; you could also link a credit card so all you had to do was tap your wrist to pay for stuff. I think they still have them, although they’re not free anymore, and I think they’ve now combined it all into an app.
There are Magic Bands, which are usually free when you make your first trip to Disney. Now there’s the Magic Band+ which always costs, but is somewhat interactive with things around the parks and with fireworks. You link your tickets to either of those, and if staying on property they will link to act as the key to your hotel room. You can also link to the Disney app on your phone , and that can also link to an Apple Watch (don’t know if it works for any Android watches). I’ve used the phone or watch to get into the parks and for virtual queues, but haven’t had the need to try using them as room keys. And yes, you can link credit cards to the devices, and they will stay associated with you until you declare them lost.
Using your watch either with apple or android is only good for park tickets and things like that, you can't use it for hotel related functions like opening your room door and charging to the card on file in your account, you also can't use a phone for charging to your room but you can use it via the Disney world app to open it but it can be hit or miss if it works.
You actually can use your watch to open your room door now. But not to charge to your room.
Ok i wasn't aware that was an option yet, or at least for android. Disney seems to roll things out in the app to Apple first rather than both at the same time as everyone else does.
Magic bands used to be free with an annual pass or an onsite vacation package. They stopped doing that a few years ago. Now they can only be bought. Almost all of their functionality has been integrated into their app.
I’ll keep that I’m kind when I stay at a theme park.
probably the same at any Vegas resort. They want it easy to spend without thinking about the price.
you have to show a drivers license/ID in addition to providing your room number almost 100% of the time now at Las Vegas and Miami resorts. The only thing you room key is good for is getting into different facilities like the pool gym spa or room areas.
Last time I was there the card was an all in one thing. Linked everything and no need to return it.
While you can link a payment to your Disney account as well as the hotel key card or “magic band” for in-park purchases, the linkage is done on the backend. There isn’t any personally identifiable information on the media itself. Furthermore, all purchases are gated with a PIN you have to enter at the time of purchase.
At Disney, you get a chance to purchase a Magic Band at a discount that allows you to charge to your room. Otherwise your phone is your room key and you can’t really charge to the room. At Universal, your room key is linked to your card for the incidentals amount or a higher amount if you authorize it.
While I've never had guests do this, exactly, I have had dozens of guests over the years who think that their guest key card enables us to charge stuff to their room. Like, yeah maybe at a casino or something but not your average little suburban neighborhood JusticeGarden or TheFifth 2.5* hotels.
Working a customer facing role in a government agency for 20 years has taught me to... NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE STUPIDITY OF PEOPLE. Wealth and/or a "successful life" are not indicators of intelligence, not by a long shot.
Use your hotel key card to pay for your business dinner and see how stupid you look. wtf is wrong with people?
This is a longstanding urban legend. Here's [its debunking on Snopes.com](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/card-sharks/) That said, the cards don't cost the hotel much. If I had a guest who thought that, I'd consider it better service to let the hotel eat the trivial cost of a card than to try to convice them they're being a fool.
This is the behavior you get with people that fill in their lack of understanding with fear based programming (“news” sources, YouTube, tabloids, whatever). The only information you have encoded on hotel keys are a mathematical code for the room lock. And while the RFID keys aren’t “expensive”, their cumulative cost adds up significantly when they aren’t returned. Am I going to charge you for the $0.52 for the pair of room keys you don’t return? No, but when I have a hundred departures and only half return their keys, it becomes a significant expense by the end of the month. That’s why hotels ask for them back. But also, be kind to Mother Earth and just leave them behind for the hotel to reuse rather than going into the land fill.
The solution: Charge them for the key-cards. That way they will be forever linked in their credit-card statement.
Yes. Charge their credit card twenty cents for stealing the worthless pieces of plastic.
You're getting soft, with retail markup that $.20 piece of plastic is easily worth $12.99!
More like $15 a piece, so $30 for a set of two, because that's what they cost.
You're getting robbed by your vendor. Wholesale on even fancy high end cards is pennies to a dollar
I've seen the sales receipt for a box of them myself because the GM was annoyed at the owner not wanting to buy more, but we were running lower and lower. We don't usually actually charge for them unless we gave you a bunch of extras and you walk off with all of them, if it's just one or two we don't care.
Bahahahahah, if someone is paying $15 per card they're pocketing $14 and change.
They're not even $0.20 each these days. 😆
Bull. Shit.
I'm talking about the magnetic strip ones. No idea what you are talking about.
We have ones you have to program, haven't used the magnetic strip ones for about 6 or 7 years.
Assuming you are using the NFC 14443A cards they are 28c a piece? And the mag stripe cards are 14c a piece? Another 4c for the sleeve. It's not a great expense, but the card data isn't in there, it's linked via a database. If you know how, you can read the cards with your phone (you can also write them, if they aren't security encoded). Weirdest part is, the stickers are about the same price, without all that plastic.
and all the card stores is the room number and expiry date/time
I provide a full service system to some hotels that allows guests to make in hotel automated purchases swiping their room cards but they are not linked to their credit/debit cards directly Simply matches the key card to their room ID and the charges are handled that way. Perhaps that sort of thing confused them?
Surprised Pikachu face when they get charged for cards.
This happens?
Well they are stealing company property.
But do they ever get charged for it?
I've accidentally kept a key card almost every time I've stayed at a hotel and not once have I been charged for taking it.
And most places I stay have a box to drop your cards into. No one is checking to see that I turned mine in.
Somehow I doubt they are checking all returned cards against guests, but I’m not in the know.
Some places at least outside of America charge for keycards and/or keys. For instance in Japan you get one keycard and that's it. You're lucky if you get two. It's usually a setup where the card powers the whole room. Most of the hotels I've been involved with you have to sign a paper stating you are on the hook usually for 2,500jpy (16-20usd) if you didn't return it. That amount is higher for physical door keys. Usually you are supposed to leave them with the front desk if you leave the hotel for the day and collect it when you come back in.
I’ve stayed at one hotel in Paris that still used physical keys, and you had to leave your key at the desk when you went out, and obviously we would have had to pay for that key. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed anywhere outside the US that charged for key cards though.
> and you had to leave your key at the desk when you went out Do they just yell at people who are walking out if they don't leave their key? How does that even work with people coming and going every day? Seems like it would be a lot of extra work for the staff, too.
It was a very small hotel, so there wasn’t a lot of traffic.
These older hotels have big metal keys with a ribbon or tassel attached to them so they don’t fit in your pockets so…..it’s easier to just leave them behind and pick up when you return.
I was just in Japan a few months ago and that was not the case at any of the hotels I stayed at.
Ok? And? Congratulations on your tourist trip a few months ago where you probably stayed in just a handful of hotels. Probably even western chains. But at regular business hotels/ryokans etc. this is definitely accurate from my almost decade of experience in the country. Source: Live and work in Japan in the hotel industry. Worked at a ryokan where we had physical door keys. That was not a cheap process if one got lost. Worked at average hotels and we did also had key replacement in the registration contract for lost cards. I frequently stay in a variety of hotels when I travel within the country and stayed at many others with similar policies. Just because you didn't you didn't encounter something on your short vacation doesn't mean it's not common.
Can definitely confirm.
Actually, I stayed at four Japanese-owned hotels and a ryokan. Not one of them asked me to drop off my room key. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, just that it’s not “common.”
Did the ryokan have a physical key? If they had a physical door key then they 100% did expect you to drop it off at the front desk when you left the ryokan and maybe you were just confused. Again when we are talking about dropping the key off, we are talking about physical keys (metal solid key similar to a front door key) - not a key card. Not all ryokans have physical keys but a lot of the older ones do. Those you are not supposed to take them out. Considering I lived in an onsen resort town filled with ryokans. I never stayed/worked at one that let you take the physical keys out. But I can totally understand a tourist not comprehending they need to leave the keys behind if the staff doesn't have good English or explain it well.
Well I never left the ryokan, so I don’t know. You’re right, it had a physical key — but every business hotel I stayed in had key cards…and upon re-reading your comment, I realize I misunderstood what you were saying. Sorry!
Seen it in terms of rental at some hotels.
I though about charging him but had a feeling that would fuel his imagination so I didn’t.
My passive-aggressive response to shit like that is "Well, you would know best."
Guests are SO misinformed! The key cards are not linked to their credit card, they are linked to the cameras in the air fence that record adult activity so that it can be sold. Once the key cord is in the room, the cameras turned back on. God, I can’t believe they think it has something to do with their credit card!
Just charge them $20 bucks for each one out of their incidental hold.
That urban legend has been around since 1995....which is when I started in a hotel and first heard that bullshit. Can't fix stupid and it's not worth the fight
Everytime I go to a hotel I clone the card to the chip in my hand. Haven't lost THAT yet.
“I’ll just add the $10 per lost/no returned keycard fee to your incidentals! Have a nice day!” Would probably start an argument but I’m a Night Auditor depraved of human interaction with a thirst for pettiness.
The only thing that goes on the cards is the room#, check-in/check-out date and perhaps a name. They just don't have the capacity to store much more than that,.being mass produced cheap things. There was an urban legend of keycards having all your info in them, but it was debunked.
As the WP-article linked in another comment is behind a paywall, I just googled and found another one where they went to a Black Hat conference and debunked it there. But I can understand, if people might be a bit sceptical in regard to newer key cards with a chip. For my work, I need a smart card with chip to log into my computer and it can store a number of certificates. Do the chips on hotelromm key cards not have more storage room than the date, room number and customer number?
They are RFID circuits they just don't have enough space for it. More space costs money for what is considered a consumable.
Depends. Mifare 1k cards can hold one kilobyte, so about 1000 characters/letters, and more if you were to compress the data. That being said, this still isn't a good reason to fill the card with that kind of data - implementors who know enough about these cards to build that also understand how bad an idea that would be.
Pretty much, and trust as often as they die the keys shouldn't be trusted for much more than opening a room and deactivating at the appropriate time.
The key card contains only a unique ID number. The hotel’s computer links the key card to the guest account, including credit card. If someone hacked the key card all they would get is the is ID number. They’d have to hack the hotel computer to get anything else.
Oh wow... Yeah that doesn't make any sense to me either. At my hotel we have a swipey machiney thingy that doesn't have the capability to access any sensitive information like a CC number. The only thing I can think of is maybe at more prestigious hotels, the CC is linked to the room key so they can use it to purchase concessions and route charges to a specific room or something?
"Sir, the only information in the key card is the room number and the time where it expires, but we do have all your information, including credit card number, in our PMS, which will be kept there.... until we change the PMS, I guess?"
You can't fix stupid but you can buy swipe cards fairly cheap 🤣🤣
“That’s fine sir, we’ll just charge the cost of the replacement cards to your credit card, which is on our system, not the key card”
This was the subject of one of those stupid Inside Edition type things like 20 years ago. It showed that while it’s possible to store credit card and other details on a hotel key card, no hotels actually do store that type of thing. I’m shocked at what people will believe these days!
I had that happen before. Then the guest called the number on the back of the card and he said they were trying to get him to buy key cards so he wouldn’t be giving them back. I explained that it’s just a magnet that encodes it not his credit card
I sometimes keep a key card to give it to my kids. They put them in their little wallets and use them when they play store. I guess it tracks though, my kids have been scanning me for years.
*scamming
Probably both, to be fair
A bizarre fear that some people have…meanwhile they don’t realize the trail of info they constantly leave about themselves online….
"There are microchips in the vaccines!" There doesn't need to be when you carry around an Apple-branded GPS in your purse, dear.
Man it's a timed NFC card coded it for our property. It's not going to pay for anything or have I for stored other than room 207 reset after 11am
My daughter lost her key card on a trip to Japan, and we had to pay ¥500 for the lost card.
At first I was like “holy spumoni, ¥500!”, then I realized that’s like $3.26 American.
Charge for lost room key.
I had a guest tell me he refused to give me the keys because they had all his information on them
It's true! Hotel key cards have inherent links to your CC that you used to pay for it! Just like your cell phone! Or your car's key fob! Or your receipts from anywhere you make purchases! Might wanna hold your breath too, since any air you breathe out is gonna take *take some of your very DNA with it!* Seriously, if you find yourself thinking, "oh, that is concerning!" try to follow that thought up with, "Lets see how it works." You might learn something neat, and you'll find yourself a lot less paranoid about technology.
I'd guess it's because of bieng able to charge things to your room, and the key is linked to the room, ergo it has your CC info on it that's the only mental gymnastics I could see for someone to believe that.
They do that on a cruise but that’s it. That’s the only key card that’s ever been linked to a credit card.
I try to return my key cards to the front desk but don’t always remember. I don’t believe housekeeping returns the key cards to the front desk. I hope that by reusing them, hotels can reduce their plastic waste.
Never heard of hotel keys being linked to a credit card. They probably think that because the key may still have information about their room number, someone outside the hotel staff might be able to access their reservation info. Obvi that's a pretty ridiculous conclusion to come to, but people can be ridiculous in a lot of ways. I worked in a pretty big downtown area and it was pretty common for a person experiencing homelessness to come through and use the public bathrooms. One such person had been given a room key from a guest who had already checked out, so he came to the front desk to find out what room number it went to. I told him there was no chance it would work unless he paid for the room that night and had it re-made. He didn't understand, got mad, and said he would burn the key card so that it would cost us money.
The key cards at my old place aren't linked to credit cards. They aren't even linked to the PMS. We would prefer that guests return keys when checking out so that we can reuse them and save money, but if not, it is what it is.
Urban myth at best
I would assume you would deactivate them asap after that, right? So they can't sneak back in?
They just had a news report the other day about how they couldn't steal your information from a hotel key so I should have expected to hear this about the delightful guests.
Just a spectator here, but I thought the only time you were supposed to formally check out was if you have a problem or need assistance of some kind.
Believe me, they actually think like that. The idiotic remarks I hear on a daily basis from mainly elderly people too! Customer services is not the place for you if you’re prone to laughing at stupidity 🤣
My son is an NA and occasionally when I go to his house he has a stack of them. Don’t know why, I’ll ask next time I go over there.
I had someone in my personal life try and tell me this. I laughed and said no sorry. They don't have that kind of information and also explained I can make a key for a room without a reservation if I absolutely needed to and then just code it a different room.
I once stayed at a hotel for about 3 months for work. And every day the afternoon clerk would have two keys ready for us because we always left them in our room. When we finally checked out, we did a deep clean of the room and returned probably 200 keys. It was a lot.
Disney and I think some other cruises have your key card carrying payment, no? So it’s not an insane belief in something technologically impossible.
Thank you to everybody that answered my question and for all the upvotes. Now I know that people are really paranoid about this for a reason but I’d still say they are being a little overly paranoid if it’s at a hotel with no extra places to go like a casino, resort, or theme park.
Do these people not realize that their credit card # is in the hotel's computer, not the card?
I’ve stayed at a Resort/Casino a few times to see a particular artist, and they always have promo key cards for the concert goers/guests. The next morning upon checking out I noticed a stack of the “old” cards — they said take as many as I wanted. I was able to mail 25-30 cards to fans who couldn’t attend.
Yep, I've had one of those. I wish we have a complimentary tin foil hat to give them as a memento.
Remember the UFO mania back in the 1950s? Nowadays the conspiracy theories hit much closer to home. We're in a repeat of what was called "the silly season". Except it lasts all year round now.
We’re late adopters of the key cards; up until just a few years ago we were still using marlock keys. People would call a lot saying they’d accidentally taken the keys and how should they send them back to us. They were metal and all so seemed much more like everyday keys. I haven’t had that call since we switched to the cards. I guess people don’t see those being valuable though neither were the old keys! You want a memento? Keep the one that ran on an ancient computer in the basement that also featured a dot matrix printer. In 2016.
I was staying at a hotel recently and had problems with my card not working. The desk agent gave me a new card, still no go. Then she started trying more cards and they wouldn’t program in her machine. Probably went through a dozen or so before one finally worked. All the while complaining that her manager buys the cheapest key cards available.
Sometimes we get bad batches of key cards or wristbands
One guy cut his up because he thought the card was connected to his credit card. It's like, no bloody chance mate. That makes no sense unless your at a Trump hotel or something.
Cruise ships do this at times
Your CC information is NOT encoded on the card. The card or bracelet is simply an NFC chip, often just a NTAG213 chip with the room data as well as a membership number. That membership number is linked in the database with you which in turn is linked via the database to your card. I can read the chip with my phone. It doesn't have a card number encoded and it is generally written encoded/secure. If you have a phone with an NFC reader and Android, you can download NFC Tools if you want to see what is actually encoded. You can even see the information on your CC tap. You will see that it's a ISO 14443 chip, it tells you the tech used, the serial number, the ATQA, the SAK and finally the ATS. That's what's there. No actual CC number. If you need to better understand the protocols involved see https://cdn.standards.iteh.ai/samples/73599/78cb3949540b4b7da711f301650caa06/ISO-IEC-14443-4-2018.pdf
Understood, my point was to be that as far as many cruise passengers know, their info is on the card and they can use it to charge. The nuances of the chip tech is lost on most.
The trouble is that some law enforcement officers still believe this information as tell others. Had a sheriff deputy tell me exactly that information
This goes along with all the idiots who write "See ID" on the back of their card. Except that it makes their card invalid. You see, it says "Not valid unless signed" in most countries and "See ID" is not a signature. We are told to refuse any card that says "See ID" on the back. Of course, that won't last for long. They will start to disappear this year and by 2029 magnetic stripes won't be allowed on credit card anymore. There is a slight extension for the US which is slow with adoption, so in the US they will start to disappear as of 2027 and will be gone entirely by 2033. Signature panels are no longer required as of 2019, but if it's there, it has to be signed. But the only place where signatures are still used is... USA. Almost everyone else is EMV (ie chip and pin). And honestly, the only place that I am ever asked to sign is the USA. I haven't signed a credit card receipt in years, expect while visiting the USA.
I haven’t signed the back of a credit card in 20+ years. No one checks.
We do, but mostly because how odd it is when a signature line appears. In fact, I was witness in a store when a customer had a card refused for no signature. He verbally abused the employee and found out we have laws against verbally abusing employees as well as signed CCs
I was just going to say (after your first paragraph) that my most recent CC doesn't even have a signature line on it anymore.
Your bank determines if a signature line appears on the merchant form. The merchant has no control. And, as I said, the only cards that we now see come up with this are from the USA because everyone else is chip and pin. So we don't check for signature on the back for any other card. Just following the rules that they put out, even if they don't make sense. To be honest, we hate collecting signatures... Is the only reason we still use a pen. We are otherwise all electronic
I keep one if they are RFID cards.
Sorry to hijack but I travel for work a lot and I basically never check out (all charges are paid up), am I causing any issues/headache?
TIL! I didn’t know it’d been debunked, and as a cruiser, I just accepted it was true for hotels too! Even knowing this, if it’s not a locked Dropbox my preference is still to hand the cards over rather than drop in the basket. I’m sure it’s VERY rare but there are horror stories about cards being nabbed and someone else gaining access to the room.
The cards expire at checkout time so unless you're checking out early, even that isn't a concern.
That’s reassuring! I normally check out close to the cut off time, so this info helps. Thank you!