Starwood publicly launched mobile check-in in November 2014. The idea of using your phone as a room key, after checking on through an app, can be a nice convenience especially for late night arrivals. You just want to get to your room and go to sleep, skipping any line at the front desk and extended chit chat.
It’s not for everyone. If you don’t stop at the desk you lose an opportunity to negotiate for an upgrade, and may not learn about a hotel’s elite benefits. The technology roll out for several chains doing this has been rocky. And it’s been a problem early on to get processes right,
- It needs to work with more than one phone simultaneously if more than one guest is staying in a room.
- Mobile check-in has to authorize credit cards. Marriott had a problem with this, and guests loading prepaid cards with low available funds were skipping out on bills (and the chain had to compensate hotels as a result).
- And ultimately it just has to work.
Four years ago Hyatt started testing letting guests use their phone as a room key at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco and the Hyatt Regency Bellevue. Around the same time I had problems getting keyless to work at Starwood’s W Times Square.
Grand Hyatt San Francisco
Hyatt has been pretty quiet about the technology, though in the fall they did say that all of their properties would have it by 2020.
It turns out that 142 Hyatts are up and running with the functionality. That’s not impressive compared to the number of Marriott and Hilton properties live with this feature. However I had no idea they were this far along, since that’s around 20% of their hotel portfolio. It’s not something they’ve been talking up or promoting.
Even when you visit one of these hotels they may not tell you about it. For instance I was at the Andaz 5th Avenue in February and didn’t realize I could have done this. It’s a feature in the Hyatt mobile app, but I haven’t use their app (even as a top tier Hyatt elite) in years because it hasn’t offered me any value-added features.
Andaz 5th Avenue Breakfast
Here’s the current list of hotels, per Hyatt:
| Hyatt Place St. Petersburg | Hyatt Regency Riyadh Olaya | Grand Hyatt San Francisco | ||
| Hyatt Regency Sydney | Royal Palms Hotel | Hyatt Regency Bellevue | ||
| Hyatt Place Athens | Hyatt House Düsseldorf | The Eliza Jane, New Orleans | ||
| Hyatt Paris Madeleine | Hyatt Regency Atlanta | Hyatt Regency Greenwich | ||
| Hyatt Place Biloxi | Hyatt Place Delano | Grand Hyatt DFW | ||
| Hyatt Regency Long Beach | Hyatt Regency Lost Pines | Hyatt House San Diego Sorrento Mesa | ||
| Grand Hyatt Melbourne | Hyatt Regency O’Hare | Hyatt Place San Pedro Sula | ||
| Hyatt Place Amsterdam Airport | Hyatt Regency Lexington Kentucky | Hyatt House Universal Orlando Resort | ||
| Shenzhen Yuanwei Hyatt Regency | Andaz Savannah | Hyatt Place Iowa City | ||
| Hyatt Centric Gran Via Madrid | Hyatt Place Station Park/Farmington | Hyatt Place Moab | ||
| Hyatt Place London Heathrow Hayes | Hyatt Place State College | Hyatt Place Provo | ||
| Hyatt Regency Vancouver | Hyatt Regency Sarasota | Hyatt Place Tampa Wesley Chapel | ||
| Hyatt Place Crocker Park | Hyatt Market Street The Woodlands | Hyatt Place Royal Oak | ||
| Hyatt Regency Westlake | Grand Hyatt Xi’an | Hyatt Place Greensboro Downtown | ||
| Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort | Hyatt Place Essendon Field | Hyatt Place Greenville Downtown | ||
| Hyatt Place Frankfurt | Hyatt Regency Boston Harbor | Hyatt Place Ocean City | ||
| Hyatt Centric Waikiki | Andaz Napa | Hyatt House Augusta / Downtown | ||
| Andaz Liverpool Street | Hyatt Regency Phoenix | Hyatt House Bryan / College Station | ||
| Hyatt Regency Etoile Porte Maillot | Andaz New York 5th Avenue | Hyatt House San Jose Airport | ||
| Hyatt Place Philadelphia/King of Prussia | Hyatt Regency Tulsa | Hyatt Place Austin / Cedar Park | ||
| Park Hyatt Beaver Creek | Hyatt Regency Reston | Hyatt Place Hampton Convention Center | ||
| Grand Hyatt Muscat | Hyatt at the Bellevue | Hyatt Place San Jose Airport | ||
| Hyatt Regency Tashkent | Hyatt Regency Princeton | Hyatt House East Moline | ||
| Hyatt Regency Paris Vendome | Grand Hyatt Bogota | Hyatt House Nashville | ||
| Hyatt Regency DFW Airport | Hyatt Regency Crystal City | Hyatt House Orlando | ||
| Hyatt Place Marlborough | Hyatt Driskill Hotel | Hyatt House Pleasant Grove | ||
| Hyatt Place Boise | Hyatt Regency Clearwater Beach Resort | Hyatt Place East Moline | ||
| Hyatt Regency Cleveland at The Arcade | Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa | Hyatt Place Jacksonville | ||
| Hyatt Regency New Brunswick | Hyatt at Olive 8 | Hyatt Place Pasadena | ||
| Hyatt Regency Milwaukee Wisconsin | Hyatt Regency San Antonio | Hyatt Place San Francisco | ||
| Hyatt House Jersey City | Grand Hyatt Seattle | Hyatt Place Sandestin | ||
| Hyatt Regency Andares Guadalajara | Hyatt Regency Orange County | Hyatt Regency Bangkok Sukhumvit | ||
| Hyatt Centric Fisherman’s Wharf | Hyatt Regency Greenville South Carolina | Hyatt Place Calgary | ||
| Hyatt Place Atlanta/Buckhead | Hyatt Regency Washington Capitol Hill | Hyatt Centric Faneuil Hall Boston | ||
| Hyatt Regency Hua Hin & Barai Spa | Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort | Hyatt House San Jose/ Cupertino | ||
| Hyatt House Denver Lakewood | Grand Hyatt San Antonio Texas | Hyatt Place Florence/ Downtown | ||
| Hyatt Regency Xuzhou | Hyatt Centric Brickell Miami | Hyatt Place Santa Barbara | ||
| Hyatt Place Austin North Central | Hyatt Regency Rochester | Hyatt Regency Seattle | ||
| Hyatt Regency North Dallas | Hyatt Regency Wuxi | Hyatt Place Atlanta Airport-South | ||
| Hyatt Regency Baltimore | Hyatt Place St. George | Hyatt Regency Addis Ababa | ||
| Hyatt Place Columbus Mississippi | Hyatt Regency Santa Clara | Hyatt Regency Chantilly | ||
| Hyatt Regency Chesapeake | Hyatt Regency Boston | Hotel Sofia Barcelona | ||
| Hyatt Place Eugene / Oakway | Hyatt Place Katy Texas | Hyatt Centric San Isidro Lima | ||
| Hyatt Regency Savannah | Hyatt Place Vintage Park | Hyatt Place Changsha Meixihu | ||
| Park Hyatt Sanya Sunny Bay Resort | Park Hyatt Chicago | Hyatt House Indianapolis Downtown | ||
| Park Hyatt Buenos Aires | Hyatt Place Sumter | Hyatt Place Indianapolis Downtown | ||
| Park Hyatt Melbourne | Andaz West Hollywood | |||
| Park Hyatt Ararat Moscow | Park Hyatt Bangkok |
Was at the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco recently where they were touting the keyless room entry. But…the Bluetooth key did not work in the elevator which, of course, required a plastic key to access your floor. In other words, there was literally no value to the keyless entry as you needed the plastic key anywhere. It seems a touch half-baked.
What credit card company has the W Hotels card?
AmEx and Chase through the Bonvoy Cards. How is.that relevant?
I have to wonder how easily someone can steal the wireless key for the hotel rooms by the placement of a signal capture device near the room doors.
I’ve seen reports of cars stolen by thieves exploiting the wireless capture of wireless/digital keys for some relatively high end cars.
Nordic Choice hotels often give me a choice of getting a key in the mobile phone app and using that instead of a physical room key or in conjunction with such. But it requires putting in a request for the mobile phone key (on the app but maybe also otherwise) or the mobile phone key doesn’t get pushed out. There, if the loyalty program account credentials are swiped by somebody, then it’s easy for such party to get a room key without having to physically interact with any staff in person.
In the hotels that I’ve used it in it does NOT work even though they say it does. I was just at the Hyatt Andares in Guadalajara, Mexico and although they said it worked it never did. They tried a few times but it was taking too long and I just gave up on it.
Huh. I was just at the Hyatt Centric Waikiki and they made no mention of this too. Not a big deal, though, as I got a decent upgrade as an Explorist.
Huh. I was just at the Hyatt Centric Waikiki and they made no mention of this. Not a big deal, though.