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I remember one time several years ago that shortly after we checked in we got a call from security and they told us that the people who had our room prior to our arrival had left their passports in the room safe and security needed to come up and retrieve them. Security came to our room (with IDs) and in just a couple of minutes got the passports and left, I assume, heading to the airport. Seems that it would be very easy for most any thief to do this. So, how safe are hotel-room safes?
Good question.
Though most traveler’s advice on how to safeguard your valuables in a hotel room recommends using the safe, nothing is 100% secure. And room safes are somewhat vulnerable to a number of potential means of unauthorized penetration.
In most modern hotel and motel rooms with safes, the safes present digital locks with electronic keypads; the hotel guest enters a four-digit code that opens the safe until it’s reset with a different four digits.
Here’s where the fun starts.
Most of these safes have an override code or key, so if you forget your code or lose your key, hotel security, management, or even bell staff can come in and open it for you. Of course, these employees are usually the most trusted people on the property, having worked there for years and handled all kinds of sensitive tasks; plus, they value their jobs much more than whatever you might have in your room safe.
That said, sometimes the override code isn’t changed for a long time, if ever, and the code is passed along to new employees who, knowing how to break in to every safe in the place, might be tempted to check out the valuables of conspicuously wealthy guests.
In addition, thieves might learn of the override code and look for easy targets, such as doors left ajar by guests or housekeepers. And there are various ways to break into hotel rooms: hacking electronic door locks, jimmying the door with a credit card, gaining possession of the master key card, etc.
Another technique for breaking into room safes is shining ultraviolet light on the safe keypad to reveal which buttons were pressed.
A particular brand of room safe has a metal nameplate that, when pried off, exposes a backup keyway. Thieves use special tools to bypass the lock and open the safe.
So what can you do to prevent theft from a hotel-room safe?
Currently, two types of secondary locks are available that shore up the security on the room safe. One is called Bloxsafe, a locking device that clamps on the front of the safe; unlocking it requires a key.
The other is the Milockie. A magnet embedded in a strap clamps to the inside of the safe. The strap is pulled tight on the outside and secured with a cover hasp that takes a padlock. The Milockie isn’t built to the same strength standards as the Bloxsafe, but it’s smaller, lighter, and less expensive and will certainly stop or delay an inside job.
Especially with the use of a secondary lock, keeping your valuables in the room safe is the most security you'll get out of a hotel room.