I recently attended a work training class and booked a hotel room for the two nights I’d be away. I drove down early the first morning and arrived at the hotel at 7.15am to unload my stuff and freshen up before hitting the class at 8…only to be told I couldn’t check in until after 11am. I was unhappy to hear that I’d have to keep my stuff in my car (including a laptop) and waste part of my lunch hour checking in if I didn’t want to wait until after work. I asked why couldn’t I check in when I was booked for that day, and was told that was the hotel policy. I didn’t push further because there were others waiting.
Is this a normal policy? I understand that the checkout time is 11am and the rooms need to be cleaned and all that, but I booked a room for that day. Not half a day (11am onward)…but a whole day. To me, that means I should be able to check in anytime after midnight. If that’s not possible due to room cleanings, then don’t allow bookings to be made for that day.
Can someone explain this to me, help me understand if I am missing something?
The industry standard is checkin time of 2:00 or 3:00 PM. It is the normal policy. Hotels will often try to accommodate early arrivals but do not guarantee to do so. You are not buying the room for that day, or a 24-hour period, you are buying it for that night. Checkout is generally 11 or 12 AM. So if I get a room for “one day” and I check in at 3 and check out at 11, I’ve been there 20 hours.
You don’t rent a hotel room by the day, but by the night. Check-in times are often as late as 3 or 4. If you arrange it in advance, you may be able to check in early; in addition, large hotels often have a checkroom where you can securely leave your luggage.
OK, I guess that answers my question. The only other experience I’ve had was a a week-long business trip where I checked in late afternon on Sunday. I’ve never had an early-morning check-in, so I didn’t know that they would have held my bags or that I could have arranged for early check-in.
Live and learn!
The reason why you can’t check in at 7am is probably because someone else is still using that room. The time difference between checkout (where I work, 11am) and check-in (4pm) is used by the housekeeping staff to clean the room before you use it. An 11am check-in is usually possible, as most of the rooms of the early checkouts (before 9am) are usually refreshed by then. Exceptions are when no one checks out before 11am, which does happen on occasion, and you’ve got to wait until 4pm until rooms are ready to be used.
Where I work (I’m in reservations, not front desk) check in is 4 PM, check out is 11 AM. You can ask for early check in and I’ll note it in your reservation, but it’s not a guarantee, especially if we’re really busy. The housekeeping staff can only do so much so fast. We do try, but it’s not always possible. And we can take your stuff and hold onto it until you can get into your room if you want to go ski or something, which happens a lot.
Pretty much what everybody else said, more or less. If you think of it by the night, not the day, it makes more sense.
So you say you’ve rented the room for the whole day? You want to check in at 12.01am, that’s fine, as long as you don’t object to being woken up and kicked out at 11.59pm so the next person can move in…
Most places I’ve stayed at had checkout times of noon and check-in times at 3. I’ve sometimes gotten a break by being in their affinity program - or at least a heartfelt apology. Quite a while ago people in the Sheraton program got early check-in at the Sheraton Boston, while those of us not in the program weren’t allowed to check in when arriving at exactly the same time.
I’ve never heard of an 11 am check-in time before. That’s very generous of them. But I doubt any affinity program is going to allow you to check in at 7:15 am.
When one travels from America to Europe, one arrives early in the morning and hotels never seem to mind when you check in right away. Did European hoteliers give up after decades of arguing with cranky jet-lagged Yanks, or is this normal practice in Europe?
I know I shouldn’t speculate in GQ, but I’m pretty sure that I’m right about this: hotels near airports in Europe are used to this sort of thing, since the vast bulk of eastbound transatlantic flights arrive quite early in the morning. So the hotels expect this sort of thing, and arrange their housekeeping schedules accordingly.
I imagine those same hotels also have a lot of guests checking out really early to catch flights early in the morning, so (even if fully booked) they can get some rooms cleaned early in the day.
My experience is that you can often check in early (like 8am to 10am) in American hotels, and that if you can’t you can leave your bags there while you go off to your meeting or training course. I’ve never been in a position where I needed to drag my bags around all day. Similarly at the other end – you can check out at say 8 am, and leave your bags there until some time in the afternoon.
In college I worked as a night auditor in a hotel, it often up to the person working the desk.
The problem is you don’t rent a room by the hour (in most places), you rent it from the time you check in till check out time.
For instance if check out time is noon, and you check INTO your room at 7pm you pay the same rate as the person checking INTO the room at 3pm or 11pm
When I worked as the auditor you have TWO days, you have the actual day and the hotel business day. I worked in one hotel where we always closed the business day at 4am. Even if I was done with all the books and such at 1am I had to wait till 4am to “turn the day over from the hotel business day” to the actual day.
Hotels set policy, in resort areas they tend to be strict and even if rooms are available they won’t let you check in before their check in time.
Conversely I would let people check in early if I felt I couldn’t sell the room (yes it’s possible to sell a room at 6am check out noon on the same actual day. That’s called a day rate and hotels love that cause they can clean the room and sell it twice.
If It was terrible slow I’d let the person check in
If they gave me lip and yelled at me, I’d say “sorry”
One thing I learned from working in customer service, if you’re mean you get nothing, if you’re nice to the clerks they (generally but not always) will help you
From my experience, it’s not European standard practice in the sense that most European hotels will let you check in any time you want. I guess it’s simply hoteliers having found a way to accomodate early arrivals. After all, there are chances that some rooms were vacant the night before anyway, so they can give you one of these; or there was a room whose previous tenant had left early, so the room is ready for an early arrival. If none of these cases happen (i.e. the hotel is really full, with no room available until someone else has checked out), a European hotel will have you wait until regular check in time to accomodate you.
And for inexperienced travellers, the same applies to check out time. Check out time is 11:00 AM, but you’ve got a 6:00 PM flight? I’ve never had a hotel that wouldn’t hold on to my bags so I could have the afternoon free of luggage. I’m elite status at a couple of hotels, and that will usually buy me a couple of hours later check out time, but not more than that. The staff has to be able to get into the room to prepare it for the next guest.