Debunking The Rumours Concerning Hotel Key Card Reliability

By: Joalesto Click author's name for more of his/her articles

It's crucial for hotels to offer their guests with the best and most efficient service possible. By providing your guests specialized hotel keycards and not just keys, you'll be able to offer them a better and safer way of ensuring the safety of their belongings, as well as providing them with a unique promotional tool. Today there are card manufacturers who provide specially-designed access keycards that are tailored to a specific hotel's requirements. Many card manufacturers offer keycards that have special designs to promote staying at your hotel during special occasions, as well as other keycard sponsorship opportunities with other businesses in your city or town.

There have been persistent rumors that hotel keycards have been encoded with the personal information of each guest, such as the person's credit card or social security number, and many fear that this may make them an easy prey for identity-theft crooks. On the contrary, this myth is technically untrue. While it’s quite possible that the keycards contain personal information, experts from the hotel industry as well as technology experts, say it should not be a cause for alarm. The experts note that the data recorded on each keycard limits the information only to room numbers, as well as the check-in and check-out records. They also noted that even the keycards utilized for making purchases in hotels, resorts or on cruise ships need not contain information; and what they simply have are codes which allow the cardholder to make a purchase. For business travelers, these cards offer a wide array of benefits. These cards serve as handy tools which fit right into your pocket or personal organizer, and you wouldn't have to worry about carrying any wobbly or heavy keys, and if you lose them, you won't have to lack sleep over fearing that somebody may break in your room.

Improved Technology Makes The Cards A Safer Option: Hotel security experts say that these new key cards offer a host of benefits per standard keys, especially if you lose them when you're hopping around town. In the event someone else gets it, it will be rendered useless once you report the incident to the front desk, as the only thing a hotel's front desk staff needs to do, is to reprogram the card and give you another one. Now, would that be a more comfortable alternative to simply using the old metal keys? Another positive feature worth pointing out is that the manufacturers of these plastic access cards today utilize a wide array of new technologies, which ensure that the cards remain virtually tamper-proof and not prone to easy alterations by scammers. They utilize printing methods which offer either single or double sided print, digital screen, offset or thermal printing methods, and other advances which help the visual or hearing-impaired

So, for those who still presume that these hotel access cards make you easy prey to scammers, identity thieves and sleazy room attendants, it would be better that you stop worrying. According to hotel industry and security experts, over a hundred key cards from various hotels, resorts and other establishments were reviewed randomly, and these were found to contain no personal information, or did not pose a safety threat to users. Hotel security consultants say that all that's in a keycard are electronic codes, which are randomly inputted once a guest checks in. The codes embedded in the card allow registered guests to open the electronic locks of a room, and once they've already checked out, a new code is encoded for the next person who'll stay in the same room. So the next time you go for a vacation and you need to check in a hotel, and you are provided with a keycard, just relax and enjoy your stay in the hotel and make the most of your vacation.

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About The Author: Jo is a content writer for ‘The Card Network’ (www.thecardnetwork.co.uk), a UK company that specializes in full range plastic card products, services and solutions, both regular and custom-made. If your hotel is in search of secure and tamper-proof hotelwww.thecardnetwork.co.uk/keycards.htm”> keycards or has an advanced, sophisticated or ordinary printed www.thecardnetwork.co.uk”> plastic card requirement then you ought to have a look at The Card Network.