I remember reading about hotel lock failures before, but I didn’t think it would actually happen to me.
Last month I stayed at a Homewood Suites property I often use for work travel. I flew in for an on-site client visit and went down briefly in the morning for hot water and breakfast. When I came back to my room, my key card no longer worked.
At first, I thought it was a simple key issue. The front desk reset it, but it still didn’t work. They tried again with a different method, then brought up a device to manually trigger the lock—still no success. Eventually, they attempted to mechanically open the door from the inside, but even that didn’t work.
Since no one onsite could resolve it and I needed to be at my client meeting, I had to leave without access to my laptop or work tools, which wasn’t ideal but unavoidable.
By the time I returned later that day, the entire lock system had been replaced.
Afterwards, I spoke with the general manager. Initially, they mentioned refunding the stay, but since the booking was company-paid, they instead offered points compensation—about 25,000 points. However, those points never showed up, and follow-ups with the GM stopped getting responses.
It’s disappointing because I really liked this property. It was a converted factory hotel in Milwaukee with great rooms, a solid bar, nearby restaurants, and a good location overall. I’ve stayed at other hotels since, but it hasn’t been the same.
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