Not all hotels have a check out app; mine does not.
This turned out to be very active for that not very active subreddit. I just now got a DM on reddit from a Newsweek lifestyle reporter (I know Newsweek isn’t what is was, no reason to shit on this) and she wants to write an article about it.
Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve gotten a bill slid under the door in several years, regardless of the hotel company. Emailing the final bill has become much more typical.
When I check out at the front desk, they offer to provide a printed bill, but I’m fine with the emailed copy. I try to minimize the amount of paper; I use digital boarding passes, get electronic receipts for restaurants when possible and so forth.
I do the same.
I hate using aps unless absolutely necessary and I have no idea how to use a TV these days.
I always go to the desk to drop off the cards. There is almost always someone there and I tell them which room was vacated. I don’t need receipts. Then I usually make one last bathroom stop and maybe grab a drink from the vending machine.
I just went through this personal protocol yesterday leaving a hotel in southern Illinois. It still works fine.
Link?
I knew a girl who did this. Slipped it in her purse, I guess. I makes her think of me and that night we left our hearts on our sleeves and our clothes all over the floor.
She hasn’t written it yet and may not ever but I will link it if it happens.
I meant to the Reddit thread.
Post 22 of this thread
Having read through this thread and hajario’s Reddit thread, I guess I’ll try to remember to checkout if I’m leaving fairly early and it’s convenient. Otherwise, I’ll just keep leaving the keys on the dresser. I will not be downloading an app for every hotel chain just so I can checkout.
I download the apps because it’s an easy way to check in, to get reminders, to ask for special pillows, etc. Honestly, my number one use of the app has been to ask the hotel to add a friend to my room, so my friend can check in before i arrive.
Honestly, as a hotel night auditor of many years, it’s nice if you check out but if you don’t that’s fine, too. Maybe you’re running late. Maybe you forgot.
Just don’t be that person who refuses to give us their email address then calls us later to scream that you never got your emailed receipt. As Dave Barry likes to say, I am not making this up.
As sometime who has frequently benefited from early check in, made possible by someone checking out early, thank you.
(And it matters a lot more if you are leaving at 7am to catch a flight than if you are drifting out at 11, right before they would automatically check you out.)
'Zactly. Thank you fellow travelers who notify the hotel somehow that you’ve left.
That’s extra important if you’re a frequent stayer and automatically get a late checkout. Which means slinking out no-notice forces the next person in that room to have no chance for early check-in.
As to not wanting to clutter one’s phone with apps …
All the major hotel chains operate a loyalty program. Assuming you stay more than WAG 5 nights a year in major hotels, it pays to pick a chain & stick with it. e.g. I have one hotel chain app on my phone. Not 10. Because I almost always stay at one of that chain’s hotels. The fact they have 20 different brands under their umbrella ranging from really cheap to really expensive means that picking one of their hotels that fits my mission and location is almost never a sacrifice.
Huh. I’m a frequent enough traveler that i can usually get late checkout if i ask for it, but i don’t think they’ve ever just given it to me. But i don’t play the loyalty game well. A lot of the time I’m with some group and staying at the group hotel. Other times… I just don’t think about it. Probably i ought to.