When you arrive at baggage claim and your luggage is more than you can push yourself, many airports around the world have carts for you to use for free. In the U.S. it’s far more common for you to pay to use a cart, like one from SmarteCarte. You’ll pay around $5 to release the cart at a nearby station, and then you can move your bags from the carousel to your ground transportation. Someone has to collect the carts, and then they get re-rented again.
But what if that $5 paid to rent the cart for an indefinite period of time? They’d sure be useful for hotels. They run $5 to $6 a piece at many USA Airports.
In contrast, hotel bellman carts can run $500 – $1500 each. $5 is a lot less, and there’s an almost endless supply at the nearest major airport!
The AmericInn by Wyndham Denver Airport situated among third tier properties on Tower Road appears to have gotten an idea like this, based on photos sent to me by a reader.
In front of the entrance to the Grand Hyatt San Francisco Airport there’s a luggage cart drop off and pickup area. You can take a cart on the airtrain to the hotel and drop it off in front. Then you can pick up a cart right outside the hotel and bring it back to the terminal. Useful! But that’s a different story entirely than a hotel grabbing just some SmarteCartes.
I use an airport wheelchair for my baggage. It’s free.
Really awful how the US is the only place that charges for those carts.
Imagine the amount of political contributions and sundry graft it took for Smarte Carte, Inc. – now owned by a UK PE firm – to convince government owned and run airports in the USA to let them charge their passengers $5/Cart for a service almost every airport in the world outside the USA offers for free and supported by ad revenues.
Smarte Carte is an excellent case study in the failure of the American form of government and its particular susceptibility to capture by special political interests.
Wheels! It’s the 21st century. Doesn’t all luggage already have wheels?
@ Jason B, how really awful that only the US shows you the price that you pay for those carts. Everywhere else hides the price in everything else you’re charged. #economicwayofthinking
When I go to ORD to fly out, I always get dropped off on the LOWER Arrivals level.
There are abandoned carts outside everywhere (Terminals 1,2,3 & 5. — There is no Terminal 4). I grab one before the cart guys can take them back to a cart machine. ($8 at O’Hare !!)
Then I take the elevator with my cart loaded with my luggage up to the Departures level in the terminal. An easy FREE solution !!
Only at O’Hare’s Terminal 5 (most departing International flights and all inbound International flights) are the carts totally free for arriving passengers.
Why are Americans so unfriendly to families? It’s very sad that the government allows these rip-off companies to operate.
It’s all explained by the deregulation of lobbying:
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?id=D000066585
The amount of bribery is astounding.
@Jason B: at least at Heathrow T5 and Hamburg, I know that luggage carts aren’t free. What’s worse, the only way to unlock them is with a physical coin (1 GBP or 1 EUR, respectively). If you don’t happen to have a coin on you, you’re SOL, or dependent on the kindness of strangers. This is why I always have at least 2 x 1 GPB and 2 x 1 EUR coins in my passport pouch when I travel to those places. One for me, and one for someone else (to pay forward the kindness someone showed me years ago, when I was traveling with 2 kids).
Charging for luggage carts in this country is embarrassing. SFO is now up to $8 a cart. This hotel was quite clever … maybe questionable ethics, but clever. As for David P … luggage does generally have wheels, but there are numerous reasons that people need carts. Being old and feeble, being injured, having extra luggage, mobility issues … the list goes on. If you’re young and able-bodied, you turn will come eventually.
Keeping a cart at the hotel, by the hotel is an interesting idea. It is also called theft.
I don’t really get the national outrage we get from Europeans over the fact that our luggage carts aren’t complimentary. This from a region who almost universally does not offer free, water or refills in restaurants., lol.
@mak. It’s not a failure of a particular form of government, but rather when that form of government is not operating as designed. America is supposed to have media and special interests that choose to fight everyday problems in the system like this. Competing parties are supposed to solve problems in ways that the other party is incapable of. You are correct that currently there are a myriad of problems in America caused by the government. But they are not caused by our form of government other that that it has been captured by a uni party that includes the media. It has been coming for 50 years now but the people are not willing to take a stand against it. This goes back to our schools and education systems. They are all captured by the system, so maybe you are right that our government is broken here. But it is the least broken out of all the others, save some small cushy countries that own our equities as a means of production.
Theft ??? Nah !!
Some guest at the hotel brought his luggage over with a cart. It simply hasn’t been returned to the airport yet.
Eventually, some departing guest at the hotel will head back to the airport with it. This is quite common. The cart people know this goes on, but a cart person never goes over to the hotel to look for wayward carts.
SFO charges $8 per cart.
@ben are these the same places that charge you for tap water also charge you to take a piss do 50 euro Or charge you to use a credit card rather then cash
Seriously! There is nothing new about this; Marriott’s TownePlace properties are using them as well as other Marriott properties. I am a Titanium elite lifetime member and it disgusts me to try to load the luggage for two people that have been on a three week trip on one of those tiny little carts. There’s not even any place to hang your hanging clothes! Cheap skates!!!
They are a relic of the past to most younger people. Who doesn’t have luggage with wheels on it nowadays?
It should be obvious to CaptainObvious that not everyone travels with merely a single wheeled luggage these days.
We travel internationally, both are photographers and travel with several, yes, wheeled, but heavy photography hard sided luggage.
Trying to wheel those along with a regular bag is a bit cumbersome, especially for seniors.
Think outside your wheelhouse, obviously.
@James M- that was my initial guess as well. But the hotel is a 2 hr 45 minute walk from the airport- over 8 miles. So doubtful.
Every airport has some things it charges for, and others that it does not. You gotta decide whether you want higher taxes/landing fees/flight frequency/luggage carts. Personally, I’m fine with the paid carts in the US because I mainly have wheeled luggage, and when I need a cart, and can’t find a free one, the US machines take any credit card.
Finally, for all those claiming that Smart Carte is built on massive bribes and political corruption. Yep- they pay out money to secure the franchise. Nope, it doesn’t go to politicians who generally are not going to make the concession decisions. It goes to the airport, and helps offset your fees when you are flying (or pay for the bonds to build the airport, instead of taxes, etc).
As Pogo said so accurately many years ago, we have met the enemy and he is us…
@LWR idk when you were last at T5 LHR but I was there twice last week and, just like every week since it’s been open, they do not charge for carts at that or any other terminal.
FYI the carts exist enmasse across the entire airport estate and move frequently between terminals on trucks placing them where peal demands are expected.
These maneuver so much easier for simple luggae compared to traditional hotel carts. Just stayed at a Hampton Inn by Sea World Orlando which offered both types of carts by the front desk with no cost nor advertising. Thought it was way cool to see these at a hotel