VACATION SECURITY- Is It Safe to Use a Room Safe?

Frommer’s, a web site that gives advice about travel locations, methods, and accommodations, recently posted an article about the safety of in room hotel safes.

The article noted videos going around social media showing methods that could be used by a thief to break into these common accessories that are provided by many hotels. In an effort to nail down actual statistics to show how much of a problem theft from in room safes really is, Frommer’s could not find much information from major hotel chains or law enforcement. While Frommer’s did not find much information to document justification of any major trends in the theft of hotel safe contents, it notes that the fear of theft is logical for travelers.

Frommer’s research developed the following recommendations,

·         Place your documents in the hotel safe in the hotel’s office.

·         Many hotel safes have you enter a unique numeric code each time you enter the safe. Be sure not to use an obvious code such as 0000 or 1234. If the safe has a preset code, be sure that it is not a simple code like 1234. If it is, ask hotel management if they can change the code for you.

·         Place an external lock on the safe such as from Milockie (https://www.amazon.com/Milockie-370111-Hotel-Safe-Lock/dp/B0042WWMA8?&linkCode=sl1&tag=pageviewcount-20&linkId=cde22f448fc1ed7924e0127df3ae2594&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl). This adds a layer to enter the safe. You can remove the external lock with a code or a key that only you have, then enter the safe with the code that is programmed into the safe’s lock. This way, a third party cannot enter the safe with a house key or code.

·         Take a portable safe with you that can be made of plastic or a soft knife proof material. You can place it in your suitcase while you are away from the room, or you can attach it to an immovable object such as a bed frame with an often-supplied heavy-duty cable and a padlock.

·         Put your valuables in your suitcase and lock it. This assumes that staff will not want to rummage through your dirty laundry to find your valuables.

 

Another recommendation that Frommer’s makes is to take pictures of important documents such as your passport, credit and insurance cards, and your driver’s license then save them to your phone and save copies to your cloud account. That way, if you lose the paper copies you have photocopies that you can show to officials on your phone or if you have lost your phone, you can show them on a laptop or notebook computer.

 

  

 

Frommer’s:

https://www.frommers.com/tips/hotel-news/are-hotel-room-safes-safe-the-surprising-truth-behind-online-fears?utm_medium=flipdigest.ad.20240312&utm_source=email&utm_content=article&utm_campaign=campaign