What's in the cards?

When a guest checks into a hotel, the front desk checks in the guest (1) through the property management system, which holds reservation, guest registration and guest billing information. The PMS creates and relays a unique guest account number to the lock management system (2), which encodes it (3) on the guest's card key, along with the room number, a lock code to open the door and the start- and end-of-stay dates. Door lock data is typically encrypted and stored in a proprietary format.

When resorts allow guests to charge meals, gift store purchases or amusement park fees to the room by presenting their room cards (4), the account code and guest name are stored in unencrypted form. The data is scanned and passed to the POS system (5), which then relays the charge information, customer ID and, in some cases, the user's name back to the PMS for posting to the customer's bill (6). However, all personal information -- including the guest's address and credit card number -- remain in the PMS.

Sidebar

Testing the card keys