I try not to turn my corner of the ol’ double-u, double-u, double-u into a complaint desk — but thanks to a psychological phenomenon called negativity bias, we all tend to engage more with bad news than good. So here’s mine: hotel check-in and check-out times have gotten completely out of fucking control.
This is hardly a new phenomenon, but earlier this summer, I stayed at a very luxe, very popular London hotel (name withheld, for now). It was a packed weekend in an already packed month, and the nightly rate was just shy of $1,000. Three grand for a long weekend. (I split the cost with friends — we were celebrating, for what it’s worth.) At that price, you expect flawless service, well-appointed rooms, excellent food, prime location, the whole nine yards. What you apparently shouldn’t expect? Access to your room before 3 p.m.
That’s right: I wasn’t allowed into my $1,000-a-night room until mid-afternoon. Check-out was at noon (which is more generous than most), but if you’re only staying one night, you’re paying four figures for less than 24 hours in the space.
And that’s not some exception, it’s the rule. Most hotels now check you in at 3 or 4 p.m. and boot you out at 10 or 11 a.m. A 4 p.m. check-in is outrageous. And it hasn’t always been this way — a few decades ago, 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. was standard. For many travelers, that extra hour or two matters.
The official explanation is that housekeeping needs more time to turn rooms. One hotel employee shared details on the r/hotels subreddit: “If we were to turn all the rooms in two hours, we’d need double the staff and nobody would get 40 hours a week. Every single one of my employees gets 40 hours with two days off in a row. It’s inefficient for labor costs, but great for the staff — and rare in the industry.”
“Three hours is already tight. If everyone checks out late and shows up right at check-in, you’re sunk,” they added.
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I don’t doubt a word of that. But the reality is, the costs of labor, staffing and scheduling have quietly been shifted onto you — the guest — in the form of shorter stays for the same or higher nightly rates. We’ve been conditioned to think this is just the way hotels work, when in fact it’s a clever bit of corporate sleight of hand. The housekeepers get squeezed, you get less time in your room and the hotel pockets the difference.
And it’s not just hotels. Try finding an Airbnb that lets you in any earlier. In fact, you’ll probably be saddled with a chore list before check-out (take out the trash, strip the beds, start the laundry). Yes, many of these properties are privately owned and the cleaning often falls to the host, but if I’m paying a lofty cleaning fee and doing half the cleaning myself, why am I still subject to the same rigid check-in/check-out policy?
Sure, you can always request early check-in or late check-out. In my experience, most places — hotels and Airbnbs alike — will try to accommodate if you ask nicely and give plenty of notice. The point is, if you’re paying a premium for a place to stay, you should be able to enjoy all its amenities and accoutrements, and you should be able to enjoy them for a reasonable amount of time.
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