Tag Archives: hotel security

Is it safe to stay in a hotel alone as a woman? If you have ever had a concern about someone unexpected entering your hotel room while you’re inside? The problem while not prevalent is real.

Alarms for Hotel Room Doors Can Keep Intruders Out

Even with security protocols in place, well-meaning hotel personnel like housekeeping and maintenance staff might open room doors for guests encountered in the hallway. They may even use a tool to bypass the metal swing bar dead-bolt to help the “guest” get inside. The swing bar can only be flipped from the wall and over the door if someone is inside so if it is engaged someone is inside the room!

While this post focuses on how to add an alarm to your door, there are more important hotel safety tips for women traveling alone at the end of the article so keep on reading to the end.

Two Popular Security Alarms for Hotel Room Doors

The Personal Door Alarm and the Door Stop with Alarm are two solutions worth learning about. The Portable Door Alarm alerts you if the door is opened even just a little bit by sounding an alarm. It will allow the door to be opened. It is small light weight and easy to pack. The Door Stop and Alarm stops the door from swinging open plus it has an alarm that goes off when the door swings onto the steel plate and pushes down on the plate. Slightly larger it too is easy to pack.

Both alarm devices can help you feel safer if you need to stay in a hotel alone. Here’s more on both alarms for hotel room doors.

Portable Travel Door Alarm with LED Flashlight

Flashlight & door alarm in one unit
Easy to set up on any door – no installation required
High Pitched 95-decibel alarm triggered when unauthorized entry is attempted.
Great for hotel and motel rooms, train compartments, as well as dorm rooms.
Built-in emergency LED flashlight
Uses 2 common CR2032 button-cell batteries, included

The Portable Door Alarm is easy to use and can be used on doors and many styles of hotel room windows. Simply hang the door alarm on the inside handle of your hotel camper, or boat door knob or lever. When someone attempts to open the door from the outside, the device activates a piercing 95-decibel alarm which is designed to scare off the potential intruder. A Door Alarm also features a built-in flashlight for use in a darkened room for additional safety and convenience.

How the Portable Door Alarm Works

The Portable Door Alarm is extremely easy to use and takes only 5 seconds to setup which is described as follows:

Pull the bottom clip which removes the two slim silver prongs which are attached by a wire to the Portable Door Alarm. The prongs are held together with a clear plastic cover. Slide off the cover (save the cover as you’ll want to replace it when the alarm is not in use) and the prongs will separate causing a loud alarm to sound alerting you that the door alarm is functioning properly. Use your fingers to press the prongs together which stops the alarm.

Locate a space in the door or window jamb and slide the closed prongs between the door and frame (or window and frame). As long as the door remains closed the Travel Door Alarm will remain silent. If the door or window is opened (even a little bit) the Portable Door Alarm will loosen from its placement causing the prongs to separate and the alarm to sound. Not only is the high-pitched alarm a great warning to you, but is likely to startle and scare off an unsuspecting Intruder.

When the Portable Travel Alarm is not in use, the sensor slides back into the alarm. Nothing to turn on or off…the battery is used only when the alarm sounds.

The Door Stop and Alarm

The door stop with alarm can be used in two ways. Use it as a regular device to keep a door from swinging open into a room. Use it as a safety device by turning it on and an alarm will sound if a door swings onto it and presses the silver plate down onto the unit. Turn the switch off and the unit is a regular door stop. If an intruder attempts to open the door, the wedge-shaped design will prevent it from opening and activate a 120 dB alarm to frighten him away. The door stop requires a 9-volt battery to make the alarm work. This is a great item for home or apartment use; especially if you have a side door to the house or another entry door which is not well secured.

Both Alarm Devices are useful beyond home and hotels, other applications, include:

Hotel Windows
Dorm Rooms
Apartments
Boats and Campers
Vacation Rentals

More Hotel Safety Tips for Women Travelers

Stay in a hotel with room access only from the interior of the hotel. Exterior room doors found in motels are riskier.
Reserve the room under your first initial and last name, that way the reservation is nongender specific.
Don’t stay on the ground floor, they are easier to access for non-guest intruders. Ask for a room higher up but not higher than 6 or 7 stories in case of fire or natural disaster. Typically fire ladders reach about 7 stories up.
Have the front desk employee write down your room number and not announce it for privacy.
Upon entering the room inspect the room for hidden intruders behind the curtains, under the bed and closet and bathroom. Make sure the windows and adjoining room door have functioning locks. Use the deadbolt AND a portable door alarm in case even the deadbolt is compromised.
Use the main lobby door to enter and leave the property. Do not use the stairwell where you could be isolated.
When leaving your room make it seem occupied by leaving the TV on and leaving the do not disturb sign on the door handle.
Use the valet service to park your car, while more costly it is safer than walking in a parking garage by yourself.

How Does Hotel Room Safe Theft Happen?

Theft from hotel in-room safes is not an everyday occurrence, but it does happen. Hotel guests do forget their safe codes or safe electronics may malfunction. Therefore, the hotel staff has to have some way to open a hotel room safe. Hotels all have a special “electronic backdoor” that allows them to use a special digital code, key, or electronic device to open the safe if needed. So you are truly not the only one with access to your safe. This short video offers a quick overview and shows how to open a hotel room safe.

Multiple Ways Hotel Staff Can Open a Hotel Room Safe, A Clear Explanation

Video – See How Easy it is to Unlock a Hotel Room Safe with Simple Tools

The below video shows that the metal nameplate on one brand of common hotel room safes can be easily removed revealing a backup keyhole underneath. Using nothing more than a simple pocket tool and a short length of wire, the safe can be easily opened. The interesting part is when the safe door is then closed, it automatically locks itself again like nothing’s happened. So when a traveler returns to their hotel room they’ll see the safe door is closed and assume it’s locked and secure.

Solution Use a Hotel Room Safe Lock or A Personal Portable Safe to Safeguard Your Valuables

A secondary lock, the Milockie, is a visual deterrent in addition to blocking the opening of the safe door even if a passcode or key is used. The Milockie prevents the hotel safe door from swinging open even if the safe is unlocked and is kept in place with a padlock that only you know the code to.

Milockie Hotel Safe Lock, helps keep hotel room safe secure

Milockie Hotel Safe Lock is a Tamper-proof Overlay Lock for Your Hotel Room Safe

Alternative security solutions include bringing your own portable safe. Available in different sizes a portable travel safe is highly effective. Most thieves are opportunistic. To breach a portable safe a thief needs a large wire cutting/bolt cutting tool that most hotel employees or others don’t have on their person.

Typically a portable travel safe folds flat so that you can pack it in your luggage for use at your destination. Most safes are made of puncture or cut-proof fabric and cinch closed with a steel cable. Some portable safe have wire mesh reinforced sides. It is these features that make breaching the portable safes extremely difficult.

Portable Safe Cinched and Locked to a Stationary Item, Like a Chair or Bed frame

Hotel rooms safes may not be as safe as you think

Portable Safe for Small Valuables Like Phones and Wallets

An additional benefit of a portable safe is that you can use it outside of your hotel room too. They work in rental cars, attached to pool chairs, bikes, or even at home.

Most Common Types of Hotel Room Safes

Electronic Keypad Room Safe

This type of safe is commonly found in mainstream hotels and resorts and in many ways is the one that MAY have the least amount of thefts from it. That’s because it requires a handheld computer device to open the safe. These safes require the attachment of a handheld PDA, with either an infra-red USB or cable. The units store up to 50 entries, incorrect PIN entry, and it’s all-time and date stamped. These can be attached to a PC, where audit reports can be printed for police and insurance purposes. These units DO NOT have a hotel override, it reveals the guest PIN.

Electronic Keypad Safe With Keypad Override Access

These types of hotel room safes require the use of an override *sequence*, not just a PIN number. This type of safe is almost as good as the one previously mentioned, as it contains a removable chip, which can access all the same data as above.

Electronic Keypad Access With Manual Safety Key

These room safes are not as secure as the previous two. This style requires the moving of the safe to enter a key and entering an override code. They record the time and date of the override entry, but nothing else. Refer below as to who *should* hold the spare key.

Manual Key Safe With Safety Key Access

This is a very old room safe model and is becoming rarer as time passes as hotels remodel and replace them with newer electronic versions. Yes, they do have spare keys, but reputable hotels don’t keep them accessible – even to management. It’s often kept in a fire-safe with either the general cashier or hotel management – we would hope – but many times who knows where this key is and who has access to it?

Where Do Hotel Room Safe Thefts Occur?

Thefts from hotel safes usually involve dishonest hotel employees, and these types of thefts seem to have a higher rate of being reported in hotels outside the United States. To read some of these hotel in-room safe theft stories reported by travelers, click on this TripAdvisor link.

Additional Articles You May Like

Simple Safety and Security Advice When Making Hotel Reservations

After you pick the location for your next hotel stay, savvy travelers recommend you do two things when making hotel reservations to ensure a more relaxing stay.

First, you need to give security some thought, even if you’re staying at a top resort. Next, you should make your personal requests known in advance. Here’s why.

Security Priorities

Request a hotel room in the “safest room zone”
That’s defined as a room on the second floor or higher, but below the 6^th in case there is a fire and the fire department needs to reach you. A room on the ground floor that has doors or windows that open to the outside is riskier especially in the case of motels, rooms off parking lots, or if you like to sleep with an open window.

Who else can access your room?
Pack a portable travel door lock. You never know if there are extra keys, key cards or pass keys out there that can open your hotel room while you are inside. You’ll sleep more soundly knowing your room is truly locked.

Identity theft happens most frequently in hotels
According to Experian, identity theft crimes took place most commonly in hotels (24 percent), restaurants (18 percent) and followed by airports (12 percent). Guard your credit cards, ID, and passport when you travel. Do not give out your credit card number to someone calling your room, even if they say they are calling from the front desk. Do not use the open WiFi connection or business center computers to conduct personal business or anything requiring a password protecting personal data.

How safe is the room safe?
A common place you leave items with your personal information while you are away from the room is the room safe. All hotel safes have a bypass code or way to open them in case a guest forgets their passcode or if the safe’s electronics fail. Theft from a room safe is virtually unprovable. Consider a safe lock that works to discourage and stop would be thieves. There’s a lot of peace of mind right there.

Personal Request for Comfort and Convenience

Room location
Do you want to be close to the pool, lobby or an elevator? Have the hotel reservations agent mark your preference in your reservation at the time of booking (try to get that room between the 2nd and 6th floor.)

Room amenities
Do you want more pillows or special hypo-allergenic pillows? Ask for them at the time of booking so that housekeeping can place them in your room before your arrival or as soon as you arrive. The same goes for extra towels or a bathrobe. Make sure your preferences are noted in your booking record and then confirm at the check-in desk even before going to your room. This prevents you from having to open the door to someone else.

Be hands-free and worry-free at the pool or gym

If you plan on lounging by the hotel pool or beach, bring a portable pool or beach safe to secure valuables you leave behind when swimming or walking around. Knowing your valuables are close and secure will let you enjoy your activities more without carrying your phone, room key, etc. with you or taking turns guarding the “stuff.”

Most importantly, confirm that your security and comfort preferences are noted in your hotel reservation 24 hours before you arrive by speaking to someone at the front desk, not the reservation center. While asking for special accommodations does not guarantee that you’ll always get them, but by speaking to a person on the property does up your chances. If they do accommodate you be sure to thank them in person for their effort, and they may continue to help you out throughout your stay.

Personal safety practices once you’re at the hotel

Read the below article Must Read Hotel Safety Tips on personal security practices once you arrive at a hotel. It’s worth the read