Lost & Found: Top 10 items left behind in hotel rooms

What’s the most commonly left item from guests in hotel rooms? It’s not the missing peanuts from the mini-bar.

Hotel guests are notoriously walking away from some of their most private possessions when they check out of hotels, but just how personal are the items? You’d be surprised. Following a check of its 31 UK hotels’ lost property departments, Novotel revealed the strange objects left behind in hotel rooms by its guests during 2010.

Because of the amount of items housekeeping has picked up in Novotel rooms, the hotel has launched a new online boutique novotelstore.com so people can purchase everything from the bed to the art on the walls, just in case they want to go home with something different.While mobile phone chargers and underwear top the list of most commonly left behind items, amongst the more unusual items guests forgot to take with them when they checked out were a car keys, wigs, musical instruments and dinner suits. The survey of Novotel hotels reveals the top ten items guests most commonly leave behind as:

1. Mobile phone chargers
2. Underwear
3. False teeth and hearing aids
4. Odd shoes and items of clothing
5. Car keys and house keys
6. Toiletries bags
7. Adult toys
8. Electric toothbrushes
9. Laptops
10. Jewelry

We want to know: What items have you left behind in hotel rooms? Did you get them back?

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Hotel Tonight lets you stay warm during the Midwest blizzard with iPhone room reservations

Last week, we wrote about iPhone hotel app “Hotel Tonight”. When we first mentioned it, hotels could only be booked in New York, San Francisco and Hollywood. Just in time for the big Blizzard of ’11, Hotel Tonight has added Chicago, Boston and Washington DC.

Like the other cities, these new options let you pick a hotel room for tonight, and results display several price categories.

For tonight in Chicago (and our upcoming 22 inches of snow), you can spend the night for as little as $59.

Best of all, sign up and book a room, and you’ll get $25 off your first reservation. Invite friends from within the app, and you can earn an additional $25 each time one of them makes a reservation.

The app is free, and is available in the iTunes App Store.

HotelPlanner.com gives away free hotel rooms for each day The Jets are in the NFL playoffs

Everyone gets a little excited around playoff time, and why shouldn’t travelers who happen to be football fans capitalize on the fun? Clearly claiming their preferred team, HotelPlanner is giving away $500 in free hotel rooms every day at 2pm EST this week to its Facebook fans while their team travel partner, The New York Jets, are still in the NFL playoffs.

The secret to free hotel rooms can be found at HotelPlanner’s Facebook page. Anybody can win, even if you’re a not a Jets fan. If the Jets continue to win, HotelPlanner will continue to give away $500 in free hotel rooms every day until The Superbowl.

Yesterday’s lucky clue from their fan page: “Today’s random number is 50! If your billing zip code ends in 50 then be the first to book $500 worth of free hotel rooms online at HotelPlanner.com!”

Seems easy enough… even if you’re a Ravens fan.

The rooms can be booked at any hotel, for any time, length of stay, star rating or number of rooms, as long as the total reservation cost adds up to $500 or less and the rooms can be booked on HotelPlanner.com.

Hotels.com Black Friday and Cyber Monday hotel deals

Still thinking about ways to get away this holiday season? One of the best things about the Thanksgiving holiday is what comes after – Black Friday and Cyber Monday. To help buyers celebrate, Hotels.com will launch one of their biggest sales of the year during the busiest shopping weekend of the year.

In addition to 50 percent off nightly room rates, the first 500 hotels.com customers who book the Hotels.com® 4-Day Sale and use code “4DAY” will receive a Flip™ Ultra camcorder.

The Hotels.com 4-Day Sale goes live at midnight on November 26 and ends at 11:59 p.m. CST on November 29. Some Black Friday and Cyber Monday hotel deals include:

The Hard Rock Hotel Chicago: The hotel is located in the center of Chicago Loop and close to the shopping district on Michigan Avenue. This four-star property has rates as low as $134 a night and is just one block from the Chicago Theatre and Grant Park.

Hotel Erwin, Venice, California:

Some of the best one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants can be found in Venice, California. With rates starting at $239 a night, the property is within two miles of fantastic shopping in Santa Monica and Marina del Rey. The hotel’s open-air rooftop lounge, High, provides panoramic views of the beach and Los Angeles

Le Meridian, Dallas:

The four-star Le Meridian in Dallas has weekend room rates starting at just $79 a night. Conveniently located across from Galleria Dallas, where signature stores, dining venues and an ice-skating rink are sure to bide your time, the Le Meridian is a perfect spot to stay while you shop for cowboy boots, bling and 10-gallon hats for the entire family.

Stockholm hotel starts cellphone check-in and room unlocking trial

Swedish lock maker Assa Abloy may not be the first to develop a cellphone based hotel room key system, but with their live trial this month, they are the first to actually get a system in place.

Their technology allows hotel guests to check-in to the hotel, and use a special mobile phone to unlock their room. The system relies on a Samsung mobile phone with a built NFC chip, which uses the same kind of technology found in RFID credit cards.

During the trial, select customers of the Clarion Hotel in Stockholm will be given one of the phones, and after four month test period, the results will be evaluated.

The idea of completely keyless entry is interesting – but I’ve also had very good results with ATM style room key dispensers, especially since they can provide a key in under 30 seconds. As with all mobile phones, I’d hate to arrive at night, only to discover the the app has crashed, or that the battery has died. After the jump, you’ll find a video clip showing the system in action.

[Via: Engadget]