The 3 Risks of Losing Your Hotel Room Key

Traveling can be a lot. There are so many things to remember and a great many things to forget.

But what happens when the thing you forget is your hotel room key? 

It happens to the best of us. After a long day of traveling, you might not be firing on all cylinders. Even if you are the always-on type, if you travel enough, you will lose your key eventually. And you will lose it good: like more than lock it in your room. It will vanish: poof! Disappear. 

The best thing to do in these situations is not to lose your hotel room key. It's kinda that simple. 

Here are the five things you risk when you lose your key. 

1. Put It On My Tab

For a lot of nicer hotel-restaurant-bar combo buildings, all you need to open a tab is a hotel key.

Rember, when you checked in to the hotel the associate at the welcome desk asked for a credit card to charge for incidentals? (And the hotel knows that they can get instant remuneration if you trash the place... in case you didn't know why hotels really asked for a credit card.) Well, in an attempt to make the experience of dining and drinking at the hotel easier.

A conniving scoundrel could have a great night on your dime and you wouldn't know unless the bar employees got smart on who is staying at the hotel. 

2. Room Number Exposure

A hotel room key is purposefully anonymized for safety reasons. Also, they are often not numbered so that they can be reused for different rooms. So unless you lose your key while it's still in the common paper sleeve that includes the room number and other important details, anyone who picks up of the card won't know what room you are in.

At least they won't if they don't have technology savvy.    

If they do, all they need is a card reading device to read the card number and date fields that are stored on the mag stripe of the card and clone the card. 

This means that a ne'er-do-well can get into your room with a separate card than your room card and possibly fleece your room. If you used it right, people shouldn't be able to take or get into your Offero LA bag if someone gets into your room. 

3. Hotel Room Key System Comprised

If someone is able to find a key card to an older door lock system, they might be able to get free reign to the guest's doors. 

There are usually only about four bits of information stored on a mag stripe: a room number, a start date, an end date and a guest number. With a card programmer, someone could set the date of the card to a room, or the room number itself, to whatever they wanted. 

Don't Lose It

A hotel room key lets you into a temporary home away from home while you are on the road. Make sure that you treat the hotel key like your house key. Don't lose it. Don't risk it. 

Worry about your purse? See what you can do to thwart knaves (and knives) with these fashion-forward and practical purses.