New from Standard Hotels: Flexible Check-In, Check-Out

While it's unlikely to ever become a standard hotel feature, flexible check-in and check-out is an obvious traveler-pleaser. Really, who wants to be locked into the hotels' arbitrary definition of when a hotel stay can begin and end?

Hotels are well aware of the demand for such flexibility, and indeed have made it a perk of elite status in some loyalty programs. But the practical challenge, of staffing for round-the-clock housekeeping, has kept the practice from proliferating. It's too complicated and too expensive to offer throughout the extensive networks of major hotel chains.



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Taking advantage of it small size,

Standard Hotels

, with just five properties in Los Angeles, Miami, and New York, this week introduced Standard Time rates, "a spanking new service that lets you choose your check-in and check-out times."

According to Standard's website:

When selecting the room type, you’ll be given the option to choose Standard Time from the drop-down menu if it’s available… For a small fee, you get all the benefits of coming and going at your leisure. Prior to your stay, we’ll get in touch via email to get your estimated check-in and check-out times. How you use your Standard Time is up to you.

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That "small fee" may not be so small. In random test bookings, the extra charge for a Standard Time stay ran the gamut. For example, a mid-week night at the Hollywood Standard in early August is priced at $259, rising to $276, a 6.6 percent surcharge, for the Standard Time rate. For the same period, a standard room goes for $333 at the Standard High Line in New York, whereas the flex rate is $388, a 16.5 percent premium.

A surcharge may be the key to making flexible hotel stays widely available. But it should be a predictable extra cost and a reasonable one—a few percent of the base rate, say, or a flat $25.



Reader Reality Check



What's a reasonable surcharge for flexible check-in and check-out?

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