TikToker shares 'genius' hack to turn on hotel lights without your key card

Daily Mail​

19-05-2025

A holidaymaker has gone viral after revealing a clever way way to turn on the lights in a hotel room without using a key card.
The use of key cards to activate room lights and power might have become commonplace in many hotels across the globe, but the practice can also cause an inconvenience to some guests. If the key card is removed, electric outlets are also deactivated, making it impossible to charge devices while the room is unoccupied.
Thankfully, lifestyle blogger Nia Braidford has shared a practical solution to switching on the lights in a hotel room without the need for a specific card.
Nia told her followers in a TikTok video: 'Sorry, I might have been living on a foreign planet but you know when you're in a hotel and you have to put your key card in the thing to make the lights work, like the little pocket.
'Well, my mother has taken the card so now the lights aren't meant to work, but did you know you can put any card in?'
Holding a Holland & Barrett rewards card, the TikToker inserted it into the key card slot, which, to her surprise, proved successful in switching on the lights.
A former hotel employee said in the comments section: 'Doesn't even have to be a card! When I was a hotel housekeeper we used to use folded up scraps of paper to do it.'
Nia's claim has also been backed up by dozens of holidaymakers on Reddit who have shared photos of their credit, energy or membership cards in their hotel room's key card slots.
However, a number of seasoned hotel guests warn that swapping the key card for another card doesn't always work.
One user wrote: 'Doesn't work, I have been in 4 different hotels in the last month, 3 needed a card for power and none of them worked with a random card.'
Another said: '80 per cent of all the hotels I was in in SE Asia this year required a true room key, not just a random card.'
A third recalled: 'We tried that once, but they changed the key (I'm guessing it was the code in the strip or something?) so that only the new one worked in the door and lights. Ugh, so frustrating!'