My husband and I have a little disagreement. Last time in Europe(2002)we were in Italy and the hotel would take our passports when checking in. I remarked how odd that was, because I remembered in France and Austria a few years earlier - that there was no check in procedure(you went to the front desk, they gave you a key and in the morning you paid your bill in cash and that's it). I remarked how awesome that is because who wants to fool around signing paperwork when you've been travelling all day. My husband remembers it differently, and besides he says, "people would just skip out and not pay if that were the general check in procedure". Any help/comments? Thanks...

I've had some hotels in some locations take passports temporarily -- perhaps an hour -- but not for the duration of a stay. Most hotels take credit cards and I would expect a common procedure for guests who want to pay in cash would be to take an imprint of the credit card and then destroy the document when cash is paid. Personally, I wouldn't be thrilled to leave my passport in the custody of others for a lengthy period of time, such as days.

My experience from my recent travels to France and Italy is that the hotels take your passport temporarily and a credit card for your charges.

hotels, as i understand it , are required to register guests with official documentation.
perhaps this is later contrasted when police have put a call out for wanted citizens.

perhaps some places are more lax about it, but i have always been asked for documentation , even at a rural country house.

I remember several times in Normandy, France where we were given a key to the room without signing a thing..Maybe that was the exception and not the rule...Too bad, because that is a great way to check in (from a traveler's perspective)...

We just returned from 11 days in Italy, and at all 4 of the properties in which we stayed, the desk clerk (or B&B owners) asked for at least one, if not all 3 of our passports and returned them to us right away. We had already booked our accomodations on line, so there was very limited registration (if any) at all of the properties. We paid in cash upon checkout at 3 of the 4 locations, but had already secured at those places with a credit card, so they were covered for incidentals, and in case we skipped out.

gravysandwich

Here is a breakdown of the airlines NYC-Italy

American Airlines
JFK-Rome-JFK

No Television in the back of the seat

British Airways
JFK-MAN/LHR-Rome/Milan/Venice, etc..
JFK-LHR
PTVs in all seats

JFK-MAN
PTVs only in Business, however G-BNWH (the plane that flies that route) is being upgraded to have PTVs in Economy.

World Traveller Plus

Delta
JFK-Rome/Milan/Venice

No PTVs

Continental
Newark-Rome/Milan
PTVs at every seat

Air France
EWR/JFK-CDG-FCO/MXP/Venice

PTVs only in their 777s, and some of their 747s, however at this point, I think Air France uses 777s to New York Kennedy and Airbus 340s and 330s to Newark, which have the old inflight entertainment systems


By the way, British Airways' transatlantic flights are excellent, with a far better in flight offering than Air France, KLM and Lufthansa (the latter being the absolute worst carrier in terms of cabin comfort and entertainment)

Pinkylou:

I'm not sure I understand what the "disagreement" really is:..whether or not it all happened as each of you remembers it or whether or not it is necessary or whether or not it is useful.

Basically: I remember alot of places with little or no check-in/sign-in..He says everywhere we stayed asked for some type of ID...

Hi p,

I have always had European hotels ask for my passport so that they could copy the info and report it to the police.

Back in the 70's they would hold the passport overnight and the police would transcribe the info themselves.

When we were in Europe last year the hotel in Vienna did not ask for it; the hotels in Italy always did. I don't recall them asking for it when we were in England but I don't remember as its been a few years.

Tracy

Eight trips to France since 2001. I don't recall a single time that a hotel asked for my passport.

In fact I'm always surprised in France when a hotel clerk asks for no ID and no credit card but gives me a key to a room for the night.

Whenever I check in at a hotel, I am asked to write my passport number on the registration form...whether in France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium or the Netherlands (and I have stayed in hotels in four of those countries so far in 2005). However, hardly anyone actually wants to *see* my passport anymore. They all assume I've written in my real passport number. They DO however, want to see my credit card...except for Accor properties because I hold an Accor Favourite Guest card and when they swipe that, most of my details (address, credit card number, phone number, etc.) automatically pop up on their system.

We were in Europe twice in 2002, once in Paris and one in Italy. On both trips, our passports were taken when we checked in at every hotel and were kept for anywhere from an hour to overnight. The overnight was only because we checked in late and the hotel didn't want to disturb us at night.

I'm here to settle a disagreement.

One of you remembers the facts accurately, and the other does not. No one here can tell which one is correct.

If you will both agree that you might be mistaken, the argument can end.

Passports are required by law in Italy. You are then registered with the police. I cannot speak for France or wherever. It is not EUROPE--it varies by country.

Just returned from Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Austria. Upon checking in, all four hotels required me to give them my passport number but they did not physically take the document or even check the number. I suppose I could have made up any number! As I remember, the same was done in France, England and Spain in past visits.
They DID however run a credit card upon my arrival. One must set priorities you know.

We were in Northern Italy a couple of weeks ago. Our hotel in Bellagio checked one of our passports, noted some details but then gave it straight back, whilst in Bergamo they held on to both passports for an hour or so.

Jim

We have lived in Europe for several years now. We never go to the hotel without our passports (although most in Spain will take our spanish drivers license instead). They almost always ask for the passport or just the number. I think the only place we were not asked was in some cheap hotels on the autostrada in France. When we went to Paris in January, we had to supply our passport numbers on a form.