The other day I overheard a discussion regarding this that gave me another one of those "Have I been doing it wrong my whole life?" moments.
I have always queued at the desk to check-out of my hotel rooms properly. It had never once occurred to me or my parents (who I watched do the same thing time and time again when I was younger) that there was an alternative. I just figured, "You check in, so you check-out".
However it now transpires that a lot of people simply don't do this. They either put the key on the front desk or a desk in the room on the way out, or more commonly just keep the bin/key (if it's a keycard which gets binned anyway) and walk out the hotel. The implications for the hotel are that the room takes longer to get ready for the next guest (as the cleaning staff will sort out checked-out rooms first), which could potentially delay the check-in of said guest if they arrive early, though no later than the normal check-in time, obviously. As such I suppose checking-out properly is a courtesy you should extend if you in turn would like to be able to check-in to a room early.
Not checking-out would save a fair whack of time in certain hotels (when there's a big queue of awkward customers), though it's obviously only possible if you paid by card, or by cash and had no additional expenses on the room, such as a bar bill or mini-fridge purchase. In addition, some hotels which now offer automatic check-out or check-out by email/app would also be a little different.
So, OcUKers, what do you do?
I have always queued at the desk to check-out of my hotel rooms properly. It had never once occurred to me or my parents (who I watched do the same thing time and time again when I was younger) that there was an alternative. I just figured, "You check in, so you check-out".
However it now transpires that a lot of people simply don't do this. They either put the key on the front desk or a desk in the room on the way out, or more commonly just keep the bin/key (if it's a keycard which gets binned anyway) and walk out the hotel. The implications for the hotel are that the room takes longer to get ready for the next guest (as the cleaning staff will sort out checked-out rooms first), which could potentially delay the check-in of said guest if they arrive early, though no later than the normal check-in time, obviously. As such I suppose checking-out properly is a courtesy you should extend if you in turn would like to be able to check-in to a room early.
Not checking-out would save a fair whack of time in certain hotels (when there's a big queue of awkward customers), though it's obviously only possible if you paid by card, or by cash and had no additional expenses on the room, such as a bar bill or mini-fridge purchase. In addition, some hotels which now offer automatic check-out or check-out by email/app would also be a little different.
So, OcUKers, what do you do?
