Anyone work in a Premier Inn?

[fizzypop100]

Our teen slept heavily and wasn't responding to us knocking loudly on his hotel room door and calling his phone. The receptionist had a look but couldn't open it with her key card because he had locked the door from the inside.
She said the only way to open it was the police. Surely there is a way to open the door in these circumstances, without damaging the door ?
(Next time I'm booking a connecting room)

I agree. Check your privilege OP

I stay in premier inns and other budget hotels often for work- as a woman travelling alone the idea that staff could let themselves into my locked room is genuinely terrifying.

But it would need 2 members of staff. One being management

I don’t understand what this has to do with anything? Managers can be rapists, and people can collude to assault.

Wow OP! I can’t believe you think it’s acceptable for staff to have a master key and be able to access rooms! In an emergency, genuine emergency, NOT an 18 year old adult sleeping in, police/fire service would step in. You need to rethink your strategy for your next holiday 🙄

This is interesting - we were looking at booking a Premier Inn for DH and myself, as well as my 2 teen DCs (17 and 14). Premier Inn class children as 0-15, so we would have to book a separate room for DD1 - logically, it would be a room for the 2 teens. Or we would have to lie about DD1's age to have a shared room.

As it happens, we will probably book elsewhere..

When I use the deadbolt on the inside of a hotel door I expect that to prevent anyone from getting into the room unless I let them in. I would not expect staff to be able to override it.

I would feel very uncomfortable staying in a hotel that didn’t have a deadbolt on my door and would probably buy one of my own travel versions if the room didn’t have one.

This is a safety feature that I expect any hotel I stay in to have. YABU.

Mumsnet is full of posts about how to secure hotel room doors so that staff members can't get in. People link to devices that you attach, or door wedges, or all manner of things that mean that no-one can get in, whatever keys they might have..

Whenever I see those posts I point out that it could be a bad idea. And when I stay in hotels that have extra bolts and other devices that you can use to latch exclusively from the inside, I don't use them.

The risk of not being roused or rescued in an emergency, bothers me a lot more.

YABU. Your son didn’t wake up = his problem. It’s not the hotel staff’s responsibility to solve this for you and him. Of course it is sensible that they have a policy of not opening locked doors where guests may be sleeping/vulnerable. Your relationship with the guest is not their problem and not a reason to override the policy.

interesting @saraclara- what kind of emergency are you referring to? If you, the guest, are feared to need emergency assistance then the police will break in. If there is an emergency in the hotel ie a fire, you would unlock the door from the inside and leave the room.

You won't be able to unlock the door if you're overcome by smoke inhalation I guess

In that case the fire brigade would have to come rescue you anyway? If you’re passed out then it doesn’t matter if you can open the door or not.

The risk of not being roused or rescued in an emergency, bothers me a lot more.

I'm pretty sure Premier Inns have fire alarms that would wake the dead. Maybe OP should have set it off to get her DS to wake up. 🤷‍♂️

The thing is, every security system has a downside. Either it can be overridden, in which case you need to trust the people who can override it, or it can't, in which case the people using it have to take appropriate precautions. After 9/11 we got airliner cockpit doors that can't be opened from outside by anybody and then we had the Germanwings incident where the suicidal first officer locked the captain out. Most phones have a secure encryption feature where if you forget the PIN you are absolutely screwed, and I can promise you that dozens of people every day set this up and then forget the PIN overnight.

From what I've seen of the OP's case, she knew DS was a heavy sleeper, so she should probably have instructed him not to lock himself in, in case he needed to be wakened. Yes, that would reduce his security, but those are the trade-offs you sometimes need to make when you're in a slightly unusual situation for one night such as jetting off on holiday. Kind of like when you get to the airport at the other end and the taxi doesn't have rear seat belts.

@Funnywonder it's not for minimum wage hotel staff to change rules on the basis of nuance. If you can't trust your 18 year old to wake up or cope independently don't have them in a room alone.

You're quite right I didn't. Never had a post deleted in 20 years on here so there's always a first. I meant origin as in background, random blokes being able to gain access to a woman's room, nothing to do with race whatsoever. I worked in hotels for years which is why I say it, it's low paid, itinerate work with high staff turnover. It can be very shady.

This. I wouldn’t want any manager or employee to be able to enter a room I’m sleeping in alone at night. I have no idea how trustworthy they are or how predatory they might be.

In a premier inn you can stay in a room on your own from aged 16

It is a dilemma. Security on one hand, but inaccessibility on the other.

I stayed at the Premier Inn in Ealing this year but didn't even notice you could lock it from the inside (soon as I entered room I was more interested at seeing the view from my window and getting my first glimpse of Wembley Stadium).

Just glad your son was fine though OP.

Next time he gets the "privilege" of staying in a family room then, no one needs this BS on checking out

Think you're getting a hard time op. Not a Premier Inn but a hotel in Venice. We'd taken my mum and she'd not responded to knocks on the door. It was terrifying and I had to ask management to open her door as I was terrified something was wrong. She'd forgotten to put her hearing aids in so couldn't hear the door. I was grateful we could check on her.

Eldest DS also slept through his alarm when we'd gone to collect him from uni on the way to Luton airport. We had to get security to wake him up. We just made our flight. We now call it the Bratislava incident! 😂

Horrible situation all round.

Great example of the downside. That Germanwings incident was horrific. The despair they had in trying to open up the door (think the recording of it was made public).

Putting a stopper on a door in a hotel is risky in case of an emergency. Personally I wouldn't.

Let's say your teenage daughter was raped by someone abusing the emergency access. You'd be screaming that no one should be able to gain access to a locked hotel room. You can't have it both ways.

Oversleeping isn't an emergency.

As everyone has pointed out, emergency access can be abused and requires hard-pressed staff to make finely balanced judgements about what constitutes an emergency.

The solution for next time is to book a hotel that allows you a separate keycard to each other's rooms at check-in.

I’m pretty sure that none of those things would stop a motivated firefighter. 🤣 They are all well trained in how to get a door down when needed. Use the deadbolt it will stop someone given a duplicate card key by mistake but not the firefighter or police.

How do people well men sleep like this