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5 Reasons to Check Out Early
Power Trip · August 27, 2003

If you're an experienced traveler, you know the TV show "Fawlty Towers" is based more on fact than fiction.

The 1970s sitcom, set in a small British inn that's mismanaged by a young John Cleese, features every imaginable hotel horror: Rodents in the food, deranged guests and awful service. For anyone who's spent some time on the road, every episode offers something to laugh - and cry - about.

Yet watching the series through the eyes of a seasoned traveler is interesting. As you wince at the terrible things happening to the victims of "Fawlty Towers," you find yourself wondering, "At what point would I just check out?"

We don't know how many hotel guests decide to cut their visit short. (That's not the kind of thing a hotel chain would really commission a survey about, let alone release to a business-travel columnist.) We do know that it happens enough for hotels to impose cancellation penalties, often as onerous as forcing you to pay for the unused nights.

Even with these extra fees, is there ever a time when you should tell the Basil Fawltys of the world you've had enough? I think so.

Here's when I would leave a hotel before my time:

When I don't feel safe. If I suspect I'm visiting the equivalent of an Outlaws Motel (in other words, I can check in, but I might never check out), I'm gone. Most travelers agree. According to a recent Harris Interactive poll, 93% of travelers say they would prefer to stay in a hotel that they know is safe. Among female travelers, 72% of respondents rated security "extremely important," while 43% of men said safety was a top priority. Ashesh Parekh decided to leave his hotel in Sao Paolo, Brazil, for that very reason. "The property was located in the red light district of Sao Paulo, so I didn't even feel safe wandering out of the hotel," says Parekh, the San Francisco product manager for a software company.

When it's not up to my standards. If the room isn't up to snuff, I leave. There's no room for negotiation in my book when the property doesn't meet basic standards of hygiene, service or amenities. A vast majority of travelers feel the same way, too. A recent YPB&R survey found that among business travelers, 97% of men and 99% of women rated a clean, well-maintained room as "extremely desirable." You can count Robert Beitz, an information technology manager from Douglassville, Pa., among them. He remembers one visit to a hotel in Orlando, Fla., where he left early. "At about 2 a.m., my wife gets up and turns on the light in the bathroom and she screams bloody murder," he recalls. "There were about a dozen roaches running around on the floor and sink. Needless to say, we packed and left immediately."

When nobody's home. This is a problem at small inns and bed-and-breakfasts more than full-service hotels, but it is more common than you would think. It's happened to me a time or two. In the same YPB&R survey, 95% of respondents rated friendly and efficient service as very important. Having no service at all certainly falls short of that expectation, I would think. Beverly Zimmerman remembers one such visit to Cape Cod. "We made reservations and found the hotel by 4 p.m. There was nobody there," she says. "No one at reception. No one in the dining room." Needless to say, an absence of staff sends a rather troubling message to guests checking in: We don't care.

When I've been lied to. Hotel lies come in all forms. The unwelcome surcharge when you check out. The surprise fees for local calls. A recent survey by the marketing firm Strategy One found that more than half of all travelers feel hotels use "bait-and-switch" tactics to lure customers. The lies do nothing but irritate customers. Stan Pruszynski, an attorney from New York, recently reserved a bay-view room at a Montauk, N.Y., hotel. "I arrived after a 125-mile drive to find that they gave away the room I requested," he says. "How do I know they gave it away? Because when I looked at the parking permit they were providing, the room number of the bay-view room had been whited out and written over. I left the hotel and found other accommodations immediately."

When the guests are, well, not what you expected. You know what I'm talking about. There are hotels, and then there are hotels. And if you've made a reservation at a hotel, expecting to find a hotel, well, it's time to leave. Stephanie Chong, a secretary from Los Angeles, found herself in a Las Vegas hotel a few years ago. "It was basically an hourly hotel," she says. "The waterbed had no heat, the lamps had no light bulbs and the television had one channel. It was X-rated." In researching this column, I found many other travelers who checked into a property only to find that the other guests were indeed paying by the hour, which made them feel more than slightly uncomfortable. Fortunately, Chong was able to dispute her credit-card charges successfully after she left. "A year or so later, we returned to Las Vegas and noticed there was a vacant lot where the hotel had once been," she adds.

But once you check out, what's next? It's a problem I often hear about in my capacity as the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler and the public radio show "The Savvy Traveler." Here's my checklist list of "don'ts":

Don't leave until you've spoken with a supervisor. That assumes, of course, that you can find one. Make sure you let him or her know that you're unhappy. Ask to have any penalty waived.

Don't forget Plan B. Where are you going to spend the night if you check out early? Make sure you've got something lined up before you leave.

Don't keep it to yourself. Make sure you notify the appropriate government agencies, chambers of commerce, Better Business Bureau and like organizations about what happened. Consider posting your comments to a Web site or bulletin board, warning others about the hotel.

Don't leave your credit-card company in the dark. If worse comes to worst, you might have to dispute your credit-card charges. Make sure you keep copies of receipts and policies in the event you decide to fight your bill.

Again, there are only a few reasons I can think of to leave your hotel before checkout time. But when they come up, it's important to act decisively and to move quickly. A bad hotel may be funny on TV, but it isn't in real life.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.