Do you need a corporate ID to access hotel corporate rates?

Online, I often see people concerned about using the corporate rate because they feel the hotel will ask for ID at check-in to confirm eligibility for the discounted corporate rate. I find a lot of people asking these types of questions and many others responding on online forums that they need an ID to use the corporate rate. However, my experience has been very different and I think it is purely an ethical issue if you do not qualify for a specific rate. No one is likely to catch you (and no one has an incentive to catch you). On the other hand, it depends on the ethical standards you are striving for in your personal and professional life.

Throughout my career, I have enjoyed corporate rates at hotels in many different capacities: sometimes I was an actual employee of the company, negotiating discounted rates, so I had a business card and other forms of identification. However, for most of my career, I have been using corporate rates as a consultant, contractor, supplier or customer for companies that contract with hotel chains. As a result, I do not have any form of identification and sometimes the details of my relationship with the company that booked my room are confidential in nature. In any case, the details are not the business of the hotel receptionist.

Typically, I am asked to provide proof of company identification less than 10% of the time when I make a reservation using a corporate rate. When I’m a real employee, I usually show my business card, but when I’m a contractor or vendor, I just say so. No further details are needed. Usually, when I ask for a corporate ID to prove my relationship with the company that holds the hotel chain contract, my response sounds like “Sorry, I’m a contractor/supplier/customer. Not once have I been asked any additional questions or further challenges.

In fact, the hotel chains themselves are not interested in investigating qualifications, as their business and profitability depends entirely on occupancy rates. Their primary goal is to fill the property. It’s the old pricing game. Let’s take an example. If we’re talking about a hotel that charges a $300 per night door rate, as long as the guests they’re paying $300 per night don’t know about it, they’ll gladly sell the room for $150 to fill their property. For this reason, sites like Hotwire are successful; Hotwire allows hotels to sell rooms at a significant discount and increase occupancy without losing profit because price-insensitive customers are willing to pay the door rate to stay at that particular location anyway. Therefore, for the same reason, they are more than happy to accept guests who book at discounted rates through corporate deals.

The only situation in which hotels are not happy with guests booking at the corporate discounted rate is when they are pretty sure that the entire hotel will be fully booked anyway, for example at certain locations during holidays or large conventions. You can tell this immediately from the hotel’s website, which does not accept corporate codes, and you will be left with the door rate.

So should you be worried about getting kicked out of your hotel? Not based on my considerable experience. Do I recommend that you use a corporate rate that you are not eligible for? Not at all, purely because I don’t think it’s ethical. However, I do recommend that you find out if you qualify for the corporate rate because you are not usually required to be an employee of a company that has a contract with the hotel. Contractors, consultants, suppliers and customers are usually eligible as well.