Hotels are squeezing guests like never before – and this new trend proves it

Telegraph

02-05-2025

Just as red represents hot, and blue cold, it's been standard for as long as I can remember that check-in at a hotel is from 3pm, and you're expected to be gone by noon at the latest the next day.
But, just as plumbing and lighting in hotel rooms have become ever more surprising and counter-intuitive, there's no hard and fast global rule any more.
Britain's leading consumer title, Which?, has just published a report on which budget and mid-range hotel chains give you the most (and least) time in your room, while also digging into why hotels are tightening up on times (spoiler: it's profit margins).
The worst offender in the survey is Macdonald Hotels and Resorts, who invite you in from 5pm and show you the door at 10am at all but one property (Plas Talgarth offers arrival between 3pm and 5pm).
The group justifies the times by explaining that its self-catering apartments take longer to clean.
But, as Which? points out, all its properties have the same times on the website, and if you want a 3pm check-in or 12pm check-out it will cost you £29 (or €40 in the Spanish properties). In addition, you can't check in after 10pm without prior arrangement as the receptions close.
Macdonald also says that it allows guests to use the facilities before 5pm if the room is not ready – but this should be standard, and any hotels not offering this, perhaps making guests cough up for day passes instead, is yet another example of hotels increasing profits at the expense of the guest experience.
I remember the first time I encountered a 4pm check-in and an 11am check-out. It was at the W resort in Vieques, Puerto Rico. This was way back in the 2010s, and it felt an outrage. 'How American,' I thought at the time. Which, in the land of resort fees and envelopes being left out for you on the bedside table to tip housekeeping every day, was what it felt like.
'After some negotiation, an exception was made, and I got the hour on each side of the stay. That particular W was destroyed by a hurricane in 2017, and most W hotels currently offer 3pm check-in and 12pm check-out, but not all: go to the South Beach property in Miami and it's 4pm and 11am, with a $75 resort fee (plus tax).
There are also hotels, as detailed by the Which? report, that manage to sell a room twice in 24 hours, by widening the gap between an overnight guest's in and out times, and offering the space left for day guests, who need a nap while travelling or who, let's face it, are having an affair.
A creeping trend in recent years is the 10am check-out. You see this a lot at otherwise fabulous restaurants with rooms in rural England. Management reasoning is straightforward: staffing is an issue, and there may be just two people who come in to turn a room each day, so they need to tackle 15 or so rooms as fast as possible.
Guests at these kinds of places stay a single night usually and may turn up for lunch. All understandable, especially in tough times for hospitality, but grating for the kind of people who sleep late and usually turn up for breakfast at 9.45am, just before service finishes. For those people (and I am among them), that means packing up and dragging your bags out of the room before you've even had a whiff of coffee. It's not the best way to end a stay.
At the other end of the scale, there are hotels with armies of staff, so housekeeping is tackled with military precision. The 12 Peninsula hotels around the world offer their guests 'Peninsula Time' if you book directly through the website or an approved agent.
As long as you give 24 hours' notice, you can check in as early as 6am and leave as late as 10pm. I took advantage of this during a stay in Hong Kong recently, having a lovely long lunch before meandering to the airport. But this is an exceptional system, and the cheapest room at the London property this Bank Holiday weekend is £850 per night (actually a relatively great deal given the average pricing at that property, particularly as it includes breakfast and £100 hotel credit).
The Peninsula guest expects more than a Macdonald Hotels and Resorts customer.
But budget hotels don't have to mean… mean. The Which? report flagged up Holiday Inn and Travelodge as giving you a solid 21 hours in your room per overnight booking, with a 3pm check-in and 12pm checkout. easyHotel came lower with 19 hours, as did Britannia – which has routinely been slated by Which?, having been named worst hotel chain for 11 years in a row.
Premier Inn, which is so many people's go-to for a budget stay (and absolutely mine), on account of its high-quality bedding, breakfasts and general all-round niceness, offers the standard 21 hours. Where it gets weird is when there's no consistency through a chain. Which? noted that the Sofitel Heathrow Airport offers early check-ins online for an extra £90, and £120 for late check-outs. That's a lot.
Such is the economics of being at an airport. The researchers found that things were negotiable offline and on the phone at £20 for every extra hour needed. Rates for early check-ins and late check-outs vary according to Sofitels around the world.
Other ways to get flexible in and out times are through loyalty schemes. If you stay 25 nights in a year at a Marriott, you get Gold status, which gives you (subject to availability) a 2pm check-out. 50 nights gives you Platinum, which takes you to 4pm. Another way is, of course, to simply ask nicely. In a lot of places, this won't work.
Almost all flights landing in Tokyo from London do so in the morning, and Japanese hotels – in my experience – won't budge a second on check-in time. They definitely aren't going to call you if your room is available earlier than 3pm. But sometimes, where the hotel culture is more relaxed, you'll get lucky. One of my editors on this very newspaper was on a hideously early flight to Belfast recently and arrived optimistically at room2 Belfast at 10am. They were given a key with a smile.
Meaner check-in and check-out rules at hotels (along with breakfasts that aren't included in the rate) are invariably linked to one thing: profit. Want to check in at a Mercure before 3pm? It's £10 per hour on top of your already confirmed rate. Most people would find that reasonable.
And then that all adds up for the management, as the Which? report details. Many hotels work with HotelFlex, a hotel management tool designed to drive revenue from unsold rooms. It matches unsold rooms with guests wishing to extend their stay through early check-ins and late check-outs to maximise profits around the intel (hence so many hotels asking you for your arrival time). It's close to passive income.
As HotelFlex says: 'Just sit back and count the money.'