When booking hotel stays, travelers are often told to check for tacked-on fees or avoid booking platforms that sound suspicious but a new scam targets visitors who are already leaving after a great trip.
As Nathan and Eleni Weisser described to the Points Guy’s Consumer Rescue columnist Michelle Couch-Friedman, the couple was spending one night at the London Hilton on Park Lane (HLT) on their way to a trip on the Greek Islands and had vacated the room without formally checking out since they had a credit card attached to the room and already paid for their stay using loyalty points.
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“It should have ended with the Weissers informally checking out by dropping their keycards in a box in the lobby,” Couch-Friedman describes. “They headed to the airport for a flight to Greece, unaware that a bad actor had been watching them. That thief slipped into the unoccupied hotel room and called down to the front desk to extend the stay.”
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The thief then proceeded to stay in the room for two nights and run up room service orders for a total charge of over $800. While relatively low when compared to the damage that had been done by scammers targeting travelers in similar ways in the past, reversing the fee quickly turned into a nightmare as the hotel refused to acknowledge that it was an impersonator who extended the stay.
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“After the multiple hotel representatives insisted that it was Nathan who had extended and stayed in the room, Eleni pieced together that the actual occupant had to be an imposter,” Couch-Friedman wrote. “She repeated that suspicion over and over in her correspondence, but none of the hotel representatives, including the property manager, acknowledged Eleni's accusation that the hotel had hosted a fraudster and billed her for his stay.”
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‘None of the hotel representatives acknowledged the accusation’
In the end, it took threatening to go public through the Points Guy and submitting a trail of evidence including Uber (UBER) receipts to the Stansted airport and confirmation from Ryanair (RYAOF) that the Weissers had boarded and landed on their flight on the day the scammer extended the stay to get Hilton to reverse the stay.
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“An individual gained access to your room after your departure,” London Hilton on Park Lane eventually wrote in an apology email sent to the Weissers that also acknowledged a refund of the extra charges and the points used to book the stay for the inconvenience. “The extension would normally only take place at the front desk, however due to the claim of ill health my team reacted in a concerned manner and it was granted via phone. This matter has been reported to the police.”
While the London Hilton will now be extra careful about granting such extensions for those who do not book them at the front desk, such scams risk becoming more common as the digitalization of hotel transactions push more travelers rushing to the airport to skip the check out at the hotel counter.
“Until your reservation is formally closed, anything that happens in your hotel room is your responsibility,” Couch-Friedman concludes. “If you did not check out in person and someone slips into your room after you've left, eats everything in your minibar and damages something, you will be on the hook for the bill”
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