One of the perks of hotel elite status is the ability to get a late checkout at hotels. While this is not universally honored at all hotels, it can be a nice perk to not have to check out until 1pm, 2pm or even 4pm. This is especially true when you are flying out of your destination and have an evening flight. Sometimes, depending on if the hotel has an executive lounge or if you’re going to be busy all day, it’s not a big deal, but if you’re working primarily out of your room, a late checkout can be a lifesaver. I don’t always have elite status, but even without status, I’ve had pretty good luck just asking for early check in or late checkout, if the hotel is not too full.
2 Problems With Late Checkout
There are 2 main problems with getting a late checkout
- Oftentimes, your original key stops working. So if you do leave the room for whatever reason, you can’t get back into your room. Sometimes you can fix this by going down on the morning of checkout to get an updated key
- Housekeeping never seems to get the memo. So even though you may have agreed with the front desk on a late checkout, nobody tells the housekeeping staff. So they might try to get in and/or keep calling you while you’re sleeping or trying to get things done
Genius Hack To Keep Housekeeping From Interrupting Your Late Checkout
Reddit user u/Ishak-Kristof came up with a genius solution. They made sticky notes that you could put on your door to indicate that a late checkout was agreed with the front desk (H/T: View from the Wing)
I’m of a mixed mind whether I think that these would actually work, but the idea is genius
The Bottom Line
Getting a late checkout can be a great perk of having hotel elite status, but one of the biggest problems is the fact that hotel housekeeping never seems to get the memo. This can mean them calling your room phone, knocking on the door or even worse – just using their key to barge in, thinking that the room is unoccupied. A redditor came up with a solution to head off this problem by placing a (fake) sticky note on the outside of the door.
What do you think of these post-its? Do you think they would work? Leave your thoughts in the comments below
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Because all housekeepers can read English…
If you click through to the Reddit post, there was some talk of that – that he should have also put the request in Spanish.
Not genius when – no habla ingles
Better than nothing