I know laws are different in different countries and, within the USA, the different states. But as far as the US is concerned, is there a general rule about whether a hotel can throw you out after your reservation period has ended because it wants to give it to another person. I have been told that once you are in a hotel room the only way the hotel can get you out is through a formal eviction process. Is this true?
Absolutely no knowledge of this issue, so I’m speaking speculatively. But I would have assumed that in all 50 states, the police can (and eventually would) be called to summarily (and forcibly, if necessary) remove you and your beongings from the premises.
I believe the hotels protection comes from the fact that they can raise your room rate. If you refuse do depart on your scheduled departure date you may stay, however if the hotel has to walk a guest to another hotel, your room rate may become the combination of the two rooms, maybe more if you are a jerk. They have your CC and signature at check in.
I have one datapoint. I had reservations in a hotel in Orlando for a conference once. There were storms in the northeast, and apparently many current guests had flights canceled. I was bused (along with at least 20 others) to a resort far away because supposedly the hotel was not allowed to kick people out even though their reservations had expired. I have no idea if this is true or an excuse.
A cursory Google search reveals the following code in Montana:
Bolding mine on the relevant section. IANAL, just a reasonable person who would infer that not vacating at the previously agreed-upon checkout time could be easily be violating the hotel’s reasonable standards or policies.
The methods articulated as available to the innkeeper to facilitate the eviction does not appear to require intervention or permission from a court. Maybe they do, and it’s outlined in another part of the code. Either way, this should be good information to further the discussion
As you pointed out in your OP, this is going to depend on state law and not federal law so you might end up with lots of different correct answers. I have never had a problem calling the front desk and saying that I needed to stay another day or two even when the hotel was full. Business travelers have to do that frequently. Even in a hotel that is supposedly full, there are always last minute cancellations so they can move the incomers around even if it means putting them in the Presidential Suite at the regular room rate.
Not at Disneyworld. We tried to extend our stay at one of the Disney resort hotels, and were told that they were completely booked. We did end up staying another day, but had to move to another resort hotel (which was completely painless, BTW).
In addition, if a hotel guest refuses to vacate, another tactic a hotel could take is to charge the recalcitrant guest the maximum rack rate for the room.This is often much higher than what a guest may have been paying.
P.S. This is my 3,000[sup]th[/sup] post! Woo-hoo! And it’s only taken me nine years! 
As others have said, “State laws vary.” As someone who worked in hotels for almost all my life, you will find out hotel laws tend to be very odd.
The reason is most laws were adopted well before the 50s before roadside inns and travel became very common. In those days you were talking very little stays for one or two days, more or less hotels were short term housing for 30 days to less than a year.
When you check in, you agree to a check in and check out date. In Illinois for instance, they cannot physically force you out without a good reason. For instance, if they are playing music too loud.
What happens in a situation like that is the hotel oversold and no one wants to cope with this. I used to hate this as an overnight manager 'cause I always got stuck dealing with it. It was very annoying to arrive for work at 10:30pm and find I am oversold by 10 rooms and no one bothered all day to try to find rooms for these people.
There are different attitudes about asking guests to leave. My attitude is if the sales office got aggressive and oversold the hotel too much, they need to deal with it. It is ludicrous to me to ask a guess IN YOUR HOTEL to leave for one who hasn’t even arrived. And yes, I’ve seen situations where we have not extended guests stay and then not sell out that day.
You see it’s very common to give perfect sell bonuses to managers. When I worked for Starwood, I handled the incentive plans and this was insane. I would say “If you have 750 rooms to sell, and I sell 750 rooms” (A perfect sell) I get $500 - $1,000 bonus. Fine, except that if I sell 750 and walk 20 of them to another hotel, that means I distrupted 20 reservations and the hotel paid for those people at another hotel. So to me selling 750 and walking 20 of them is the same as selling 730 rooms. But I could never seem to make anyone understand that, and a perfect sell was always in the incentive plan.
If this happens to you here’s what you do. Ask the front desk if you can stay over, they will say “no.” Fine, if you can move do so. But inform the General Manager (no one else counts, trust me) that you’re moving and will relocate any futrue business to other hotels.
If you feel like you’re stuck, simply leave all your stuff in the room and go out for the day.
It’s unlikely the hotel will physically move all your stuff out. Now I’ve had cases where they have packed up your stuff, but that is rare. Usually they just extend your stay. That is why you don’t just leave the suitcases all packed in the rooms, spread your stuff over the place.
Now what if they pack your stuff? You come back to the room and say “I’ve been robbed.” The desk says “No, we packed your stuff and moved it to storage, we couldn’t accomodate an extra day.”
“You what?” Let me see…
Whenever this has happened, somehow that person who got his stuff moved, finds things are missing and it’s a mess. The cops gets called in, they file police reports, the GM and corporate gets involved (and corporate will NEVER be happy about that) and the insurance company gets notified as you’ll have to pay out.
I remember when I worked for Sheraton (It was ITT owned back then) we did this and this is what happened. The guy claimed an iron and it cost, of course, $75.00. I was like $75.00 for an IRON??? I felt like saying “For that price that iron better iron my clothes for me.”
So this is the reason if they hotels can accommodate you, if you leave your stuff in it doesn’t happen much where they will pack up your stuff. It’s too risky. In the above case that cost us about $1,000.00. Now I knew he was making most of it up.
As for raising the rate on the day you stay over. When you check out act all shocked like “No one told me?” The clerk “yes we did,” You reply “Where? I don’t see my signature agreeing to it in writing.” Then just walk out without signing your card. They’ll do a signature on file, then you dispute the charge when you get the bill.
The hotel won’t fight it, because the front desk clerks usually aren’t educated enough to deal with that properly.
Let’s say you stay 3 days at $100/day. You do as I say above, and on the fourth day the hotel charges you $200/night. What the front desk clerk should do is check you out at the end of your scheduled day and then recheck you in on that fourth date at a higher rate. That way if you dispute the charge, you don’t dispute all the nights.
But it’s rare they do this. So you get a bill of 3 nights at $100/night plus one night at $200/night or a total bill of $500.00. My way you would’ve gotten two charges on your credit card one for 3 nights at $100/night and one for 1 night at $200/night or two charges, 1 for $300 and 1 for $200.
This way the guest could only dispute the one item, and if he won not get off not paying for the entire stay.
I’ve overstayed my reservation in a Hilton Hotel. They were completely booked and had to walk a guest to lodging elsewhere. Actually they put him in one of those corporate apartments, so he ended up with around 1300 square feet of two bedroom, 1-1/2 bath, full kitchen apartment for the rate of a Hilton, so not so bad for him. I was charged the full rack rate, that insanely high rate on the back of the door that no one ever pays, something like $450 for a standard room.
It was business, and I stay 100 nights a year in Hilton hotels, and the company I work for spends millions of dollars on travel a year, so the situation might have been different if it were otherwise, but nobody mentioned calling the cops.
Our hotel hates overselling, it means pissing off at least 1 set of guests and we live on repeat business. Since someone is going to be disappointed we stick to honouring our promises/reservations. That mean in-house guests that want to extend their stay sometimes are told ‘no’. We’ll do everything we can to find a nearby, similar quality/price room and shuttle you there.
It’s rare, but when someone who wants to extend their stay can’t and tries the ‘just leave their clothes all over the room method’ it has about a 50/50 chance of working in my experience. It’s annoying since policy is to have 2 managers document and pack up the room.
Here’s an article on a law firm’s website that reviews the law: http://www.hklaw.com/id24660/PublicationId1983/ReturnId31/contentid48559/
and a section from a book on the law of inkeepers: The Laws of Innkeepers: For Hotels, Motels, Restaurants, and Clubs - John E. H. Sherry - Google Books
Sorry if this has already been stated, but most, if not all motels/hotels today require a credit card at check-in time. I think overstaying wouldnt hurt the hotel one bit as they could easily just tack on another nights stay on your card.
The issue, at least as I understand the OP and the sources that I cited, is not that you can’t get the guy to pay for another night–it’s pretty well accepted that the hotel can toss you for non-payment–but that the room has been promised to another customer.
I have had the opposite experience. In Jan. 1969 (I think it was), the American Math. Soc. scheduled their annual meeting in a hotel in DC (presumably governed by federal law) that was owned by the Teamsters. They had a signed contract. But the Teamsters had a convention there right before us and when the time came, they stayed and we got bumped to another hotel (the original hotel did make all th e arrangments).
If I recall the date correctly, there would have been an inauguration that month, but I think we were in early enough January that we didn’t clash. Or else it was in 1970.
Our motel doesn’t often experience this problem, but when it does happen our GM takes the view that he needs to honor the reservation–essentially a promise to hold a room–rather than accomodate the guest who changed their mind at the last minute. Of course this is explained to the overstaying guest in a most apologetic voice: Oh dear, this room has already been promised to someone else, if only we had known…
Our keycards are made to expire within an hour of check-out time (and, seeing as we are not the most sophisticated chain, I can’t imagine that this is an unusual innovation), so anyone using the clothes-spread-all-over method will be unable to retrieve their belongings without going to the front desk. They will basically be given a choice between paying up or being banned from future stays, the latter threat generally only effective on locals who come to use the pool. Those using the stay-in-the-room-with-the-deadbolt-on method receive a visit from the local police department.
If you think about it, requiring a formal eviction process would be impractical in the motel/hotel business. Every homeless person around would scrape together the cash for a single night (no need for a 1st & last month’s rent, after all) and stay indefinitely.
I’m new here, btw. Hi ya’ll.