Different hotels and chains take a variety of different views on what it’s alright for guests to ‘steal’ from their rooms.

Hyatt wants you to take their toiletries (but not actually raid the maid cart). On the other hand there are hotels RFID tagging towels to keep you from stealing.

The Marriott Wardman Park in DC is turning 100 years old and figures that all those thefts have really added up over the years. A little here, a little there, across not just a few years but a hundred and they’ve really incurred some extra costs. Don’t worry though because if you’ve taken something from a stay there just return it, they’re offering amnesty.

To celebrate its centennial, the hotel will use all the past memorabilia collected to create a permanent display in its lobby.

It is also a contest.

Through the end of the year, Wardman Park will be accepting not only hotel property that’s walked out the door over the past 100 years, but also the stories that go with them.

Judges will decide which previous guest has the best story and the winner will receive a two-night weekend stay in the hotel’s Langston Hughes suite, and 500,000 Marriott Rewards points.

Marriott Wardman Park, credit: Marriott

The hotel in Northwest Washington DC is huge, nearly 1200 rooms and a couple blocks from the Omni. When it was first built 100 years ago it was nicknamed Wardman’s Folly because it was so much space so far out of developed downtown.

The property opened just after the end of World War I, changed hands during the depression, and was the spot where the first episode of Meet the Press aired from. It became a Sheraton in the mid-1950s, was renovated in the late 70s, and Marriott assumed management in 1998.

In their version of amnesty you’ve got to give the stuff back. See I think they should let you keep it all if you fess up. That’s what Holiday Inn did with towel amnesty day in 2003.