Hotel Key Card Hack and Getting 12 Cents/Point Hotel Redemptions

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. The room key hack has worked for me everywhere except the Novotel Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok. That one seemed to require the actual key.

  2. The information is very dated. The key card trick is an old trick but…. Hotels and cruise ships have gotten wise and many now require the actual valid key card. Not sure what the ships will do as the new disney style bracelets come on line. The generic mag stripe cards are still useful for the card safes though.
    Wyndham is not a good program even if it was 5 points per $ sorry to disagree.

  3. I had the card key trick work as recently as this last December, at the Hilton Tallinn Park in Estonia.

  4. I’ve been doing the “hotel key” thing for years. More than a decade. As for requiring the actual key – hotels almost always give me two keys by default, and on the rare occasion when they don’t I just ask.

  5. Wow. Using another card in the slot is a “hack”? Lol.

    That’s the most obvious thing ever – I’ve been doing that for decades.

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