We're using swipe cards for room access at
Well House Manor - it allows us to give our guests a single key that gives them access to their room, the front door, and the conference rooms if appropriate. And as they're time limited, it allows our guests to be reassured that a previous guest who failed to return his or her key cannot return and get back in the room ... also good news for us as proprietors as we don't have a security headache with lots of keys out there. And cards that are NOT printed with room numbers, addresses, etc, also pose less of a problem even when "in date" if they get dropped or mislaid.
But I've learnt of a story - an urban myth - concerning these cards. It was said that some hotels put credit card details on them. And indeed it turned out that it wasn't always an urban myth - a few hotels (NOT us) were caught doing it. But, hey, the blank cards are cheap. We do like to reuse them but if you're concerned you're welcome to take them with you. Perhaps we should add an advert on them?
At the moment, our room cards are themed with the pictures in each individual room, and guests will have seen them in use from the first day. We've now added card holders with a note of our contact numbers if you need to phone back in, and our 24 page room information folder (our "FAQ") is available.
Added - July 2010
Q. via page - /mouth/939_Swipe-cards-for-hotel-rooms-Security-issues.html
what to do when the computer didn`t abale to encode the reservation and the room will be given to other guest?
A.I'm not sure if I understand the question
... but ...
If we want to cancel a key that's already been made, and we don't have the original key, we can encode a new card to replace the old one in such a way that the first time the new card is used in a lock old one ceases to be valid. We then use the new key ourselves (in each lock effected) to test it / invalidate the old one.
Simples. (written 2006-11-23, updated 2010-07-16)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
M300 - Well House Manor - Behind the scenes [203] Holes in on line information - (2005-02-05)
[677] Sympathetic development - (2006-04-09)
[742] A visit from the solicitor - (2006-06-03)
[769] King Edward VII - days of empire - (2006-06-20)
[813] Monday Morning at Well House Consultants Melksham - (2006-07-24)
[868] Smoking, or no - (2006-09-16)
[897] Too much for the National Trust - (2006-10-18)
[927] Hotel door furniture - (2006-11-15)
[931] Before and After - Well House Manor - (2006-11-18)
[951] What happened at Geekmas - (2006-11-28)
[1000] One Thousand Posts and still going strong - (2006-12-18)
[1083] Behind the scenes - (2007-02-17)
[1105] A week is a long time in the life of a conference centre - (2007-03-10)
[1159] It can take more that one plus one to get two. - (2007-04-22)
[1179] Sizing sheets and other domestic issues - (2007-05-07)
[1189] Meet, greet and welcome - (2007-05-16)
[1285] In the army, or in civvie street? - (2007-07-31)
[1311] What do people look for on a hotel web site? - (2007-08-20)
[1319] Customer feedback - lifeblood of a business - (2007-08-25)
[1369] One business, four different angles! - (2007-09-28)
[1371] Hotel in Melksham at Christmas - (2007-09-29)
[1441] On cancellations, rebooking, and pricing schemes - (2007-11-22)
[1490] Software to record day to day events and keep an action list - (2007-12-31)
[1515] Keeping staff up to date on hotel room status - (2008-01-22)
[1520] Terms and Conditions - Hotel, England - plain English - (2008-01-26)
[1571] Await guests in the early hours - (2008-03-12)
[1637] Providing exceptional service - and carrying on doing so. - (2008-05-09)
[1854] Three Seasonal Pictures - (2008-10-25)
[1900] Table Topics - (2008-11-22)
[1904] Ruby, Perl, Linux, MySQL - some training notes - (2008-11-23)
[1948] Blame Culture - (2008-12-17)
[1957] Why are cooks bad tempered? - (2008-12-22)
[1973] Required Request - (2009-01-03)
[1991] Rules for a King - (2009-01-13)
[2125] We have lost a regular business guest - (2009-04-10)
[2247] A day in the life of a hotelier - (2009-06-18)
[2396] Easing off in our 50s? - (2009-09-06)
[2910] Robust - testing the system - (2010-08-09)
[2916] Testing the robustness of our hotel and training systems - holiday and sickness times - (2010-08-11)
[2960] The Well House team - September 2010 - (2010-09-19)
[2961] Initial handling of phone calls and walk in visitors - (2010-09-19)
[3093] How many toilet rolls - hotel inventory and useage - (2010-12-18)
[3743] Sunday - no longer a day of rest - (2012-05-28)
[3844] Rooms ready for guests - each time, every time, thanks to good system design - (2012-08-20)
[3961] Well House Staff Party - (2012-12-22)
[4302] Sunday is never quiet at Well House Manor - (2014-09-21)
[4365] The changing face of Christmas - (2014-12-26)
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