Travel Tips for Your Hotel Stay

This one was passed along to me in an email. I can't confirm if its true, but if it is, it's worth worrying about:

HOTEL KEY CARD

Ever wonder what is on your magnetic key card?
Answer:
     a. Customer's name
     b. Customer's partial home address
     c. Hotel room number
     d. Check-in date and out dates
     e. Customer's credit card number and expiration date!

When you turn them in to the front desk your personal information is there for any employee to access by simply scanning the card in the hotel scanner. An employee can take a hand full of cards home and using a scanning device, access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense. Simply put, hotels do not erase the information on these cards until an employee re-issues the card to the next hotel guest. At that time, the new guest's information is electronically "overwritten" on the card and the previous guest's information is erased in the overwriting process. But until the card is rewritten for the next guest, it usually is kept in a drawer at the front desk with YOUR INFORMATION ON IT!

The bottom line is:
Keep the cards, take them home with you, or destroy them. NEVER leave them behind in the room or room wastebasket, and NEVER turn them in to the front desk when you check out of a room.

They will not charge you for the card (it's illegal) and you'll be sure you are not leaving a lot of valuable personal information on it that could be easily lifted off with any simple scanning device card reader. For the same reason, if you arrive at the airport and discover you still have the card key in your pocket, do not toss it in an airport trash basket. Take it home and destroy it by cutting it up, especially through the electronic information strip! Information courtesy of: Pasadena Police Department
** I personally have a small magnet and pass it across the magnetic strip several times. Then try it in the door, it will not work. It erases everything on the card.

Another one that I find myself using more and more these days is the 'shoes on the safe' trick. If you leave anything in your hotel safe while you are staying at a hotel, you run the risk of leaving the next day and forgetting that you had used the safe in the first place. To avoid this problem, put your shoes, or another article of clothing that you plan to wear the next day, on top of the safe so that you will be forced to go there before you vacate the room.

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Comments

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[gje]

Uhm

In a variant to the shoe trick I lost my wedding shoes years ago in London:

I had put them under the bed to remind me to check the space under the bed before checking out. However when I checked out I had put on my other pair of shoes and forgot some books under the bed as well :-)
Regards
gje

[Jen]

Thanks for clarifying the rumour. Sounds like it may have once been an issue but that most major hotels have been smart enough to close the loop. It does say that there is still potential for fraud, so beware...

[ourman]

err...you should probably read this and stop stealing and damaging hotel key cards and suggesting others do the same:

http://tinyurl.com/srw6

You're right about Pasadena Police though. But even they have retracted:

http://tinyurl.com/ddls6

Never believe mass forwarded emails without checking first.

The shoe on the safe trick is good though.