Why does my hotel key card seem to stop working in the middle of my stay so often?

Frustrating, isn’t it, to get to your room and discover your key card no longer works? There are several possible explanations for this:

• The card was not encoded for the correct number of nights.
• You extend your stay – or sometimes just arrange a late check-out – but fail to have your card re-keyed.
• You locked yourself out during your stay and the front desk provides a new key that overrides the original key so that now only the new key works.
• The quality of the key itself is low and the magnetized strip doesn’t retain the code properly.
• There is a nick in the magnetized strip of the card that prevents it from being read correctly.
• The room door lock is in need of maintenance.
• The key card was placed next to a cell phone or other device with a battery and became de-magnetized.