Somebody has just walked into our hotel room at 4am

[Batmam]

Me and DP were fast asleep in a (large, chain) hotel and a woman with a suitcase has just let herself in with a key - don’t know who was more shocked her or us! We didn’t have any clothes on but were under the sheets thank god. I was sleeping so deeply it took me a second to realise what was going on. Never had this happen before in my life, and after everything that happened with Premier Inn I thought hotels would be even more diligent about security.

Phoned reception and she was more concerned with getting our details than actually apologising. It wasn’t a mistake with the key, the woman was told that this was her room. I’ve never worked in a hotel, but how could this happen? We checked in in person last night and signed for the room. Already paid when booking unfortunately. Surely the system should have known this room was occupied?

We’ve bolted the door now and it obviously won’t happen again tonight, but I doubt I’ll be able to go back to sleep now...

• [Correction at OP's request - the security incident mentioned was at a Travelodge hotel, not a Premier Inn]

It has happened to me - walking in on an occupied room anyway, not the other way round, and that was when I was travelling for leisure purposes not on business. Once out of thousands of trips. If it happens a lot in some hotels, then perhaps that's why the hospitality industry is in such a dire state and struggling to survive.

As for insults, don't dish them out and post ragebait if you don't want to be criticised yourself.

Shes thankful she's never had to deal with "hysterical reactions", not thankful no one has ever been raped because shes shit at her job. I think that says it all.

It still happened (I worked in a hotel), some rooms had several spare keys and you wouldn't notice if one was already gone. Sadly I was responsible for one of those cock ups 🤭

I hope you get a sensible resolution OP. It simply should not happen. It's bad enough when you're on the loo and the maid comes in! And yes, always make sure you have something on - I have been in a hotel when the fire alarm went off, fortunately it was a nicer one where they have dressing gowns so I had PJs on and was able to grab a dressing gown - and it was a false alarm).

As for being a "Karen" how dare the OP make a reasonable complaint. Honestly it is so tedious when people use lazy (and ageist and sexist) memes. Just stop.

And it isn't hysterical to be concerned and scared when someone walks into your room at 4am. Seriously some of the comments on here are disgusting.

Maybe when you are checking in you should always say to the receptionist "that room is definitely empty isn't it - I've heard so many stories of people being given the wrong key card". It would prompt a double check anyway - and especially if you check in very late at night when someone might already be in bed in "your" room!

I think you misunderstand. I assume you mean my use of the word 'hysterical' but as predicted, some posters get rather het up about this subject (as we see here).

My career in hospitality was long and I worked in 4 star hotels and one 5 star in London. I was a manager by my mi-20's. I was at one of these hotels for 11 years as assistant manager.

It doesn't matter where you work; be it a posh hotel or a Travel Lodge, sometimes mistakes happen.

If you don't believe what I am writing here, just ask anyone who has worked for any length of time in a hotel and they will confirm what I have written. In fact, I can see there are a few posting here.

If you want to prevent this, lock the door from the inside but obviously appreciate that by doing this you would delay someone trying enter your room if something happens to you while in there. This is why I don't do that.

It is possible, I can't remember how and the system was a lot more old fashioned when I worked in a hotel, but think it was something to do with not logging registration cards that people filled in on arrival in the system quickly enough.

No, I was definitely not 'shit at my job.'

I would think that statistically if a guest was raped, it would be far more likely to be with the person they have allowed into the room with them. People are more often attacked by someone they know.

Ive travelled extensively solo and had some experiences with male room boys tapping on the door at night. It taught me to always have a means to secure the door from the inside. I used to use one of those rubber door wedges but you can now get more reliable gadgets on Amazon. Oddly enough the most persistent man I ever had was in Italy (Venice) and not the middle east. All these disturbances were intentional and not the kind of "accident" OP experienced. Another tip I learned was to unplug the phone at night to deter random "calls".

Never been disturbed in a UK hotel although I was once allocated a room in Paris which was already occupied. Im sure this must be quite common in small hotels,

Yes, it did still happen then.

Of course she could be! Although it was completely innocent and a huge mistake on the hotel's part, they had no idea of her intentions!

This just happened to someone in a group I was in (large international chain, foreign country). They were asleep at 1am when someone tried to access the room as the hotel thought they had checked out and had given another person an entry card to the same room. The door had a flipover lock, which stopped the new person getting in, but they kept banging the door and trying. (Reminder to self, always use the flipover lock if available.)

Surely the computer system should have a way of automatically preventing this?

Please look up the Travelodge SA! Shocking.

It doesn't matter where you work; be it a posh hotel or a Travel Lodge, sometimes mistakes happen.

So maybe the point here is that the hotel industry should be doing more to make sure these mistakes can't happen. Of course human error is always a factor in things, but when that human error has the potential to put someone at risk by allowing a stranger to enter their room while they're sleeping, or as a bare minimum, cause a customer to not have the product they have paid for (a good night's sleep in this instance) then hotel companies should be looking at ways to minimise if not eliminate the possibility of this particular error happening - rather than just shrugging and going 'ah well, these things happen all the time, nevermind'.

I have no doubt it is.

I cant believe you even have to ask this.

Yes I'm sure if someone got raped and the prick at reception who gave the rapist a key to her room, told her, with a shrug "well its more likely youd be raped by someone YOU let into the room" it would come as a huge comfort.

What a stupid thing to say, and yes, you are shit at your job if youve handed out keys to guests rooms to the wrong people, putting them in potential danger. I've work hotel receptions too, and have manged to never be so incompetent.

Victim blaming in plain sight

Yes and I’d also say in this situation the staff member didn’t display she was bad at her job only in the error that was made but also in how they handled it. From what OP said it appears she wasn’t very apologetic.

If you work in customer service and you (or your colleague) messes up you are meant to start by apologising and showing a bit of empathy. It’s customer service 101 really.

If you can’t master that then you’re not fit for that kind of role.

Thanks, yes sorry Travelodge not PI - I’ll never ever stay in one of those again.

This was Radisson, they’ve given us a full refund. Still thinking of escalating it and contacting the CEO. Systems need to be improved, this should never be able to happen!

The doors are automatically locked from outside as soon as you close them.

Two things I have taken from this thread.

Reading comprehension skills among some posters are so low. OP does not say she was in a Premier Inn. All the other stuff about how she has been going on about it for days is not stated either.

There are a number of people who just like to be contrary for the sake of it. These Contrary Mary types just post to disagree with people, pour scorn, say that they wouldn't be upset/affected by whatever is upsetting the OP.

@Batmam of course you got a fright and you were scared. And of course the hotel should be taking this extremely seriously. The fact nothing happened to you is irrelevant - their systems should not allow this to happen! You'd think with the publicity around TravelLodge that they would be very hot on security for guests. They should at the very minimum be refunding your stay in full.

Yes, my DP went down to speak with the manager before checking out and she was much more professional than the duty manager last night who suggested we came down to discuss it at 4:30am🙄 (We were passed on to him after speaking to the original, unapologetic receptionist.) He did say “I do apologise” but I hate that term as it’s not the same as saying “I’m very, very sorry”

Anyway, the manager this morning was much more sympathetic and wanted to know all the facts. She offered free breakfast which we had no time for, and then a full refund (~£120)

While DP had gone down around 10:30am to sort all this, I stayed on in the room for 10 mins to finish drying my hair and the cleaner walked in to the room without knocking AGAIN. God, if I wasn’t jumpy before! They must be under huge pressure to turn the rooms around quickly, especially in an airport hotel where people only usually stay for one night…but come on🤣

You have also completely misinterpreted what I wrote. If someone was actually raped in their hotel room, it would obviously be taken extremely seriously. Obviously, no decent person is going to spout statistics to someone telling them that they have been raped. That is not clearly not what was meant by my comment.

Sometimes guests are checked into occupied rooms. It is more likely to happen to inexperienced staff members but please try to understand a scenario such as a new or inexperienced staff member moving a guest to a different room but omitting to update this on the system. Someone else comes on duty and checks a new guest into the room that is now, in reality, occupied.

The whole situation doesn't have to be the fault of 1 person. You learn that this can happen, you check things and you listen when housekeeping or maintenance flag to you that a room is occupied in reality, but not on the system. And you update the system.

We all need to help keep each other safe but the fact is that you are more likely to be attacked by someone you know.

You can continue to insult me and claim that I was 'shit at my job' but you are wrong. I'm afraid it does happen and you can lock the door from the inside if you wish.

Because my experience tells me that it happens, I never, ever failed to knock on a hotel room door, even one that was showing as empty on the room list. I would knock, and I would knock again and then I opened to door very slowly whilst calling out. This is something that anyone who isn't aware that this scenario happens would not do, so demonstrates that I was very experienced and good at my job. New staff members tended just to open the door and barge in so I always taught staff to assume that every room is occupied.

I was excellent at my job and that is a fact.

I'm not sure how you got the no apology thing from me (perhaps you didn't). An apology in these scenarios was obviously given immediately in my experience.