# Motel Room Card Keys **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 20, 2004, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003 "2004-04-20T11:23:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2004, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003/21 "2004-04-20T22:12:39Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Your mother is being unduly paranoid, but you’ll never persuade her. I think **lee** should appeal to Mom’s paranoia, to wit: “Actually, they _want_ you to take the keycard with you. There’s a tracking signal embedded on it so they can make a map of your movements after you leave the hotel. They _say_ this is so they can see whether you are having your farewell breakfast or lunch after you check out at the hotel’s restaurant, or if you’re going elsewhere. But of course you can’t trust them to use the information only for that purpose…” ---
**Author:** ![Jane\_D\_oh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/839c29/32.png) [@Jane\_D\_oh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jane_D_oh)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2004, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003/22 "2004-04-20T22:13:59Z")
> [@SiXSwordS](#): > > A couple of things…Also, I think, the ONLY way to deactivate a key is to bring an over riding key to the lock and use it. A key cannot be deactivated from the desk unless the lock is connected in some way to the card “maker”-- which most (the vast majority?) are not. If housekeeping comes through your room on your check out day before your “countdown” expires, your key will not work. IOW, the housekeeping key performs a function that lets the lock know that even though there are three hours left in your “countdown” you are gone. Your key will no longer work. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2004, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003/23 "2004-04-20T22:14:10Z")
You’re a bad person. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2004, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003/24 "2004-04-20T22:15:29Z")
( **Cervaise** is a bad person, that is) ---
**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2004, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003/25 "2004-04-20T22:19:59Z")
Couldn’t you have some sort of system where the key has information encoded that says “expires 04/21/04 1200hrs”? The lock remembers that it is only to open when the key bearing its code and “0412041200”. So, you check out. Person B gets a key with the same room code, but his checkout code is “0421041200” When he inserts the key, the lock remembers the new time code and locks out all the others. Now, Person B loses his key. He asks the desk for a new one. The give him a new card with code “0421041201”. It’s a new time stamp, so the lock changes to the new time and locks out the lost key. This would also work if Person B checked out ahead of his scheduled departure. Maybe when people leave early, someone has to go up to the room and insert a key to override the lock. The hotel wouldn’t want someone to check out, then go ahead and stay in the room. What I can’t figure is how the keys at La Quinta work, since they’re programmed with physical holes punched in the card. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2004, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003/26 "2004-04-20T22:38:25Z")
You may be right; perhaps the locks I saw were not networked (although there was a cable near the hinge running from the door frame into the door, but this might have just been to supply electrical power to the lock device, or it may have been for something entirely unrelated) ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003/27 "2004-04-21T04:03:45Z")
> [@](#): > > _Mangetout wrote:_ > In at least one of the hotels in which I stayed (in Denmark or Sweden IIRC), the lock units on the doors were more than just simple battery-operated card readers - they were networked somehow to the computer issuing the key cards; I lost my key card and they issued a new one, then I found the original, but it didn’t work any more. This scenario doesn’t imply that the locks communicate with the central computer. It fits with the data I saw at the Ving Card site that says they’re merely battery-powered remote devices. When they issued a new card and you put it in the lock, the lock decided to no longer respond to your old card. I think that your old card would have still worked up until the point you inserted the replacement. > [@](#): > > _Drum God wrote:_ > What I can’t figure is how the keys at La Quinta work, since they’re programmed with physical holes punched in the card. I happened to see, also at the Ving Card site, that their original system used holes punched in a plastic card. There are millions of possible combinations of holes, so they just use that technique instead of numbers on the magnetic stripe. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2004, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003/28 "2004-04-21T04:17:31Z")
> [@SiXSwordS](#): > > Also, I think, the ONLY way to deactivate a key is to bring an over riding key to the lock and use it. A key cannot be deactivated from the desk unless the lock is connected in some way to the card “maker”-- which most (the vast majority?) are not. At the Holiday Inn I used to work in, we were able to deactivate people’s keys from the front desk. For example, if a guest hadn’t payed his bill we could deactivate his key so he couldn’t “sneak in” the back door and get into his room without having to speak to the desk first. As you can imagine, locking people out of their rooms (and effectively holding their stuff hostage) was a very effective means of inducing remittance. The method of doing so was simply to press a button on the keymaker. How the keymaker told the door to refuse admittance is something that remains a mystery to me, since the locks seem to have been wireless. (They were battery operated, that much I know for sure, but I never took one apart to see if there were any hidden wires. Perhaps there was some sort of radio signals.) Nevertheless, I was able to lock people out when the situation called for it. Nor did our housekeeping keys deactivate the key at the end of a guest’s stay. We either did it manually if the room was unreserved, or it was done automatically when a new key was made. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003/29 "2004-04-23T19:37:29Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > At the Holiday Inn I used to work in, we were able to deactivate people’s keys from the front desk. > The method of doing so was simply to press a button on the keymaker. > > \*\*_How the keymaker told the door to refuse admittance is something that remains a mystery to me, since the locks seem to have been wireless._ \*\* > > Nor did our housekeeping keys deactivate the key at the end of a guest’s stay. We either did it manually if the room was unreserved, or it was done automatically when a new key was made. I also worked at a hotel and I remember telling people their previous card would be deactivated, but I didn’t think it could be done without using another card in the door. This has been bothering me for awhile-- ever since the hotel switched to key cards actually. I understand that it’s not such a big deal if the housekeeping key does not effect the guest’s room key ( housekeeping keys always use the same code regardless of whether someone is checked into the room or not and the guest key is probably coded to give you a little leeway anyway.) But HOW can you deactivate the key without directly accessing the lock… remote control? ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2004, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003/30 "2004-04-24T10:34:10Z")
I did systems admin for my last job at a hotel. This UL comes from the fact YOU CAN put any information on a card. The key system interfaces with the Front Office System (FOS). Desk Clerks, and even Front Office Managers are not told this. Options aren’t activated. I’ve worked with 4 systems and all have the ABLITY to swipe your whole profile (res info, cc info etc, address etc) into the card. But no one ever does that. THis is where the UL comes from. Just 'cause you CAN doesn’t mean people do. (FYI A LOT of hotel FOS systems are over 10 year old. They run on DOS and have very limited ablity to store data. example Intercont Hotels have just contracted with Micros/Fidelio to update their FOS system it is basically a 1994 version) But as stated WHY WOULD YOU. I don’t need your cc number I have it in the computer. As I have stated many times before it would be MUCH easier to look thru the garbage. At my last hotel I would get into fight after fight with the controller. She refused to shred the receipts (as company requires). She said it was “too much bother.” Trust me the biggest saftey issue is the trash. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/motel-room-card-keys/241003.md?page=1)