Can Hotel Staff Access the Safe in Your Room? What if You Forget the Combination?

Yes, hotel staff can access the safe in your room. One of the reasons is if you forget the combination, the hotel staff will be able to get into the room, and the safe, to retrieve your belongings. It is unknown, and will vary by the hotel, how many staff members will be able to access the safe.

However, it is true that none of your valuables will be 100 percent safe unless you are bringing additional locks to secure the safe and your belongings.

Hotel Staff Can Access Your Safe

Is it okay if a hotel staff member can access your safe? It will depend entirely on the guest. Some guests will prefer this as an alternative to safety, in the event that the safe crashes or they forget the passcode to it. Other guests will wonder why they should bother to put something in a hotel safe.

One study indicates that as many as 43 percent of hotel staff have stolen something from a guest one time in their career. The most frequently stolen items are money and tech. Alcohol and jewelry are also ranking high on the list of things stolen from hotel guest’s room.

Sometimes, a hotel staff member will be more likely to steal the item if it is left behind, rather than while the guest is still there. Other hotel staff members have reported seeing a co-worker take money while on the job.

Hotel Safes Can Be Safe

Hotel safes can be safe, but it really depends on your comfort level. If you feel safer putting items into the safe, then use it. Although it is the case that staff members can access your safe, that does not mean that every staff member in the building will be able to access it. You can ask staff members for help casually if they will be able to open the safe for you, and that is likely the best way to get the answer.

Many hotel services may not want to tell you how that works. You may have a long form in the safe when you arrive about how secure your belongings are. If you tell a maid or staff member you forgot the password and need help, they may indicate to you how to get that help.

If they are eager to pull a key out of their pocket to offer assistance, that may mean your safe is available to anyone that works there.

For the most secure safe, you want to see that your safe is managed by management and nobody else. Overall, most guests won’t mind their safe being managed by the hotel they work with. It hasn’t always been the case that a safe is even offered in every hotel room.

Before they were, they were kept behind the front desk for the front desk to maintain and manage. It was understood that someone in the hotel would be opening the safe to access your belongings.

The hotel management wants you to feel safe enough to return, and will take measures to protect your valuables, and vulnerability. Hotel staff may not be the only people you need to worry about here. There are thieves and crooks in high tourist destinations that walk the halls of hotels looking for empty rooms to check out while the guests are out for the day.

Maintenance of Hotel Safes

Hotel safes are managed with master codes and master keys. If you forget the code to your safe, you can ask management to help you open it up with their key. It does happen that the guests will forget their passcodes or PINs, and need help retrieving their valuables.

The staff can get into your room easily, and also into your safe. Most safes will have an override code and that permits staff to use this override to get into the safe, if they do not have the master key. At the same time, there are many common default safe codes that are used by tricksters that can get them into the safe.

In addition to override codes and master keys, batteries are another key maintenance feature of a hotel safe. Low batteries are a common problem with safes in hotels, and a primary cause of management assistance or maintenance with a guest’s safe.

If a battery dies in a safe, the management will have to replace it and will have to access the safe to do so. This is a time when you want the hotel to be able to access the safe.

How to Keep Hotel Belongings Safe

When you are trying to decide how to keep your hotel room belongings safe, there are a number of travel tips you can cement to memory. One thing that you can do is check to see if the safe is bolted into the wall or into the shelf that it is sitting on. That is to ensure that the safe won’t walk away with a human that isn’t a hotel staff member while you are out of the room.

You also want to see if the safe has a lock behind the plate on the front. These locks can be very easy to pick. Another way to keep the safe safe is to check what the override method is. Many hotels today now have devices that will override the safe, and not a master key.

No hotel is going to buy one for every staff member. These devices will record when the safe is accessed and by whom. You can ask this question when you are booking your hotel if a hotel room safe is important to you. It is to many people and this won’t be a strange question.

Keeping valuables in a locked suitcase might be safer than a hotel safe. Suitcases today can come with padlocks, but you can also purchase them separately. You may want to since TSA-approved locks can also be opened with a master key.

If it is TSA-approved, that means it will be opened with a master key if it needs to be searched by an official. But, if it isn’t a TSA-approved lock, it will be cut off if an official looks in your bags.

In a hotel, the likelihood that someone with a TSA-approved master key is slim. But you never know. In the end, your own suitcase with your own lock system is likely the safest way to store your valuables if you suspect anyone of anything when you are traveling. When you are traveling internationally, these security tips are more important to consider than when you are at home.

With this in mind, you will also want to secure your suitcases to something in the room if you are truly a paranoid traveler. In this day and age, many people are. You may not want to leave a locked suitcase lying around that is easier to drag out of a room than a safe.

The safest safety tip when traveling is to keep your most important things at home, particularly if they can not be replaced. Otherwise, safes can be safe and protect and secure your valuables. But no system is foolproof today.