So let me tell you a story about a time a few years ago when I was awoken out of my bed at the Hyatt Place Atlanta Airport by a hotel fire alarm at 3:30 in the morning. Â In case you were wondering, that’s the Hyatt Place Atlanta Airport NORTH (because of course there are TWO Hyatt Places at the Atlanta Airport, but I digress…). Â So it took me awhile to figure out what was going on (my first thought was that it was the alarm clock, though usually I remember to check that it’s turned off) but then I figured out it was the fire alarm, going loud and strong!
Lessons learned from my hotel fire alarm procedures
My family of 8 was not in adjoining rooms (boo!) so I was in one room with my 3 sons, while my girls and wife were across the hall. Â In hindsight, there were a few things we could have done better to follow hotel fire alarm procedures
- We were pretty slow getting out. Â I think that’s probably because in the back of my head I knew there was about a 2% chance (if that) of this being an actual fire
- We took the wrong (further) staircase (hey at least we remembered not to take the elevator!)
- My wife didn’t grab her phone / wallet or anything like that (though I did).
- I’d say that fewer than half of the guests evacuated. Â We milled around the hotel for awhile, and then the guy at the front desk was like “Hmm I think it’s a false alarm”, and we all went back inside.
This is similar to my discussions about whether you should take your bags in an airplane evacuation. Â First I thought you could, now I’m convinced you should not (unlike these guys)
Of course, whenever there are problems, I think about compensation – in this case hotel fire alarm compensation. Don’t hate me please – I’m already steeling myself for the angry comments :-P.
The case AGAINST hotel fire alarm compensation
So the very first thing that comes to mind AGAINST the idea of hotel fire alarm compensation would be that I’d imagine in most cases, it’s not really up to the hotel if someone pulls the fire alarm.
And I don’t know that every minor thing that goes wrong has to equal compensation.  Sometimes it’s just a matter of “life happens, sometimes it sucks, deal with it”, right? 🙂
The case FOR compensation for a hotel fire alarm
On the other hand, there are a few other things to think about.  If you’re following hotel fire alarm procedures and requirements, I would imagine that it’s fairly unlikely that it’s an actual fire alarm pull and much more likely that it’s a glitch in the system.  Perhaps I’m naive but I’d imagine that in most cases it’s not someone pulling the fire alarm in the hotel (though I’m sure that happens).
Also I do feel like the hotel has some responsibility to ensure that you have a restful night’s sleep. Â That’s what you’re paying for, right?
In the end…
I mentioned something about the hotel fire alarm in the morning when we went down to breakfast. Â I was curious to find if they had any more information about what happened.
I was underwhelmed by the response by the front desk clerks. Â The lady mentioned that she wasn’t there overnight and didn’t know what happened and… that was it. Â I wasn’t necessarily expecting her to just give some of compensation for the fire alarm, but I was disappointed that she wasn’t more apologetic. Â I mean a fire alarm going off in the middle of the night and impacting everyone’s sleep is a BIG deal (especially if you’re traveling with kids as I was). Â I would have appreciated an apology, even if it WAS completely out of the hotel’s control (and again, for this specific instance, nobody told me at all what went on)
I asked if they were giving any hotel fire alarm compensation and she said not that she was aware of.
Readers what do you think? Â Is hotel fire alarm compensation ever warranted or expected? Â Or should you just “suck it up”?
This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as thepointsguy.com. This may impact how and where links appear on this site. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them
User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Premier Inn give you a good night sleep guarantee so I see no reason why a more upmarket hotel can’t do the same. In fact by not doing so they are giving poor service.
I don’t think any compensation should be expected, but the lady could have been much more apologetic and provided better customer service. Hotel fire alarm happened to me once at Hilton Croydon near London. The alarm went off around 4pm and by 6pm, everyone had a coupon for a free $5 drink in the lobby bar.
I definitely don’t think compensation is due. It’s annoying for sure, but what can the hotel really do? I do remember a flyertalk thread a few years ago where a hotel alarm went off like 3 nights in a row or something like that…that was an obvious issue with their system. In that case I would say some sort of voucher or credit is due, as it was a recurring glitch they didn’t fix quickly enough. But even then I’m thinking some sort of breakfast/dining/drink credit. I know in that thread some said a full night hotel rate was due…which i think is a bit much.
I would just worry what safety precautions some cost concise hotel owners might skimp on or overlook if every time there was a fire alarm between 9pm and 5am they had a real financial penalty involved.
I had this happen. Hotel fire alarm went off at 2:30AM at the Aria Las Vegas. I knew it was their fault since they had been doing testing in other parts of the hotel and complex earlier in the night. It was even worse since I had gone to bed late and had to be at my trade show at 7 AM. They gave me a $75 f&b credit.
Really?!?!? Google hotel fire fatalities and you will understand why people who assume there is no fire, die. After 20 years in the fire service I have witnessed it personally. I travel now 42+ weeks/year and when the fire alarm goes off I am out with no questions asked. False alarms do happen but what about when it is real? I for one will not be a forgotten statistic.
Ummmm… I agree with you? I vacated. Again, I’m not demanding compensation and to me it depends on what the cause of the fire alarm was, which nobody at the hotel either knew or explained to me. If it’s just some drunk dude pulling the alarm, that’s one thing. If it’s a system malfunction, that’s another. If it’s someone burning popcorn (i.e. “legitimate” alarm), that’s another.
All I was really looking for from the hotel was just a “hey sorry about that, it really sucks to be woken up at 3:30” at checkout
I can see the newest hack being to pull the alarm to get compensated.
Just wait till I start blogging about that one. Then it will all be – oh there go the bloggers ruining it for everyone again!! 🙂
I don’t think you should be compensated, but an apology is due. I guess I shouldn’t be stunned that you didn’t get an apology. Customer service can be really poor at some hotels. That isn’t even a matter of poor training. Common sense in a customer service oriented profession should indicate an apology.
I was given $100 credit on 7 night Hyatt stay over New year’s a few years ago even though was actually a fire in laundry room. Letter was slid under door next morning suggesting contact director of rooms. I guess they felt adaquate as hits fault for not cleaning lint trap.
You should definitely argue for compensation … hotel false alarms are not part of a good stay. Percentage of bill off, breakfast coupons, whatever … after United, the hospitality industry is under the microscope.
Compensation for a ‘false alarm’? Really? Please! Then stay in a hotel with no fire alarm so you can rest better and a chance at dying. This is just out of control. Compensation for everything… so sick of it where people expect something for anything that goes wrong. It is a chance we all take when we stay in a hotel. It is going to happen. You might have a drunk person set off the fire alarm because they spill beer in the smoke detector (happened to me). Should I expect the hotel to give me compensation for the stupidity of one drunk guest? NO! Of course not. Yes, it was annoying to have an alarm to go off at 3am but being an adult and understand this things will happen it is part of being a grown up. Simple.
Wow. You sound pethic. If your shelling out 100’s of dollars and you don’t get what you pay for, they should try to make your stay more enjoyable. That’s why it’s called hospitality.
100% agree ..especially if evacuate alarms,not stay and wait..outside myself in 0c weather at 3 am…worked for international brand and free night would be comped…
You clearly have no empathy and if you can’t even see why someone would want a little compensation for their expensive one night stay that was interrupted then you’re just a trolling grouch and I hope the next time something upsets you, someone tells you to suck it up.
COWBOY UP. You couldn’t possibly be this wimpy with 6 kids.
Compensation for everything… that is what people expect nowadays, for anything. The ‘compensation’ crap has gone to extremes. It is a fire alarm for a reason… for your safety! Simple! Sometimes you might have a false alarm and sometimes it will be a real fire. Do you rather have a hotel with no alarms where you can die because you want better rest? What about your house? When you have a guest, do you deactivate your fire (and carbon monoxide) alarm so they can sleep well while taking a chance there is a fire and you all die? And if there was a fire in the hotel without a fire alarm, you could be injured or die. I rather have a ‘false alarm’ than a real fire with no alarm. And the fact is that it is a embarrassing that for a seasonal travel, you did not have a ‘ready-to-go’ bag with all of your important items to get out of the hotel in a real emergency. As a travel professional myself, I always have a small travel bag with my passport, cell phone, wallet, and jeans/shirt and jacket if necessary that I can dress fast and grab the bag and leave the hotel without having to think about leaving anything important behind. The rest are material items that can be replaced. Life cannot…. If you want a proper rest, then stay home.
No, I don’t deactivate my fire alarms when I have a guest come over. On the other hand, my guests aren’t paying me hundreds of dollars to stay at my house. And, if a fire alarm DID go off when my guests were coming over, I would probably feel bad about it and apologize to them in the morning
I am currently at this moment staying at a Marriott across from Disneyland where the alarm went off at 7:45am. False alarm no big deal(even though it scared the crap out of my four kids it was a good lesson in being prepared for those situations, staying calm, and listening to instructions for our kids. We spent the whole day at Disney with an 18month old, 4, 8, and 12 year old. Got back to hotel at 10:30pm same day. Getting exhausted kids ready for bed and fire alarm goes off again right before 11pm. Scared tired kids to pieces again. Hotel staff turns it off, says everything is ok. We all fall asleep to only get woken up 1am, and have it go off three more times…hotel staff says they don’t know what’s going on, working on it…?! Unsat! I’d say compensation is absolutely due!!! To all you people acting like anyone bitching about a situation like this is being ridiculous! A one time fluke happens, but this is insane and unsafe to have this level of false alarms!!! Beyond pissed at 1:30 am!! I’m a tired mom!
That is pretty egregious. I had it happen just once in the middle of the night and that was pretty bad
I disagree. The room alarm was deafening and could not be turned off The ear pain was unending The hallway alarm was 10x decibels worse Up on a high floor and unable to reach the stairs we chanced upon a working elevator We left the room but not before calling the front desk who did not tell us to vacate. At 6am the stress and anxiety over a false alarm should be compensated We paid for a room and did not expect the disruption If we agree to accept this then every hotel will accept the disruption as usual practice
My thoughts exactly and it’s very stressful. There wasn’t even any emergency vehicles show up and we were on the 15th floor of our hotel at 11pm. Where is this acceptable? I could understand if emergency personnel showed up but, nope not 1.
Most chain hotels are much more willing to give bonus points than other forms of compensation. So I usually ask for points when there has been a service irregularity. (I had a fire alarm incident at an SPG hotel which I think may have been the fault of the employees. I received an apology EMAIL; requested 3000 points in response, which were quickly added to my account.)
Had an alarm go off twice in the afternoon at a Nashville Hilton. This was the only time I saw a “satisfaction guaranteed or your stay is free” sign at the front desk. The staff admitted it was a glitch but the real issue was they couldn’t re-start the elevators. There were lots of other issues with our stay besides that resulting in a full refund for the night. They were very apologetic and I would stay there again.
As a hotel owner I will say that it all depends on the cause of the alarm. During the night if there are false alarms caused by our system or by our staff, we give a GBP10.00 reduction from the guests bill (and a sincere apology). If the alarm is caused by a guest, we make sure everyone knows who did it when it comes to breakfast time. I would say that 90% of false alarms in our hotel are caused by people smoking or vaping in our non-smoking hotel!!
Thanks for the comment Luke. I personally wasn’t necessarily looking for hotel fire alarm compensation, I guess I would have just liked some acknowledgement at ALL by the front desk in the morning of what had happened. Instead, it was all sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened
If an alarm is the fault of a guest (either willfully or because of breaking the no-smoking rule), I’d hope the guest gets ejected and banned for life.
i can agree that compensation for a safety measure is just stupid, but yes the hotel had a fire in one of the rooms upstairs, i ended up checking it out being on the same floor while checking every floor below it for smoke on my way to the lobby, all was good with in the first half hour, 3 of the 4 firetrucks left and my guess the remaining firefighters where just assessing the water damage as water covered over 14 room entrances that included the floor below, nobody was hurt as the issue was minor but after figuring all was said and done because the final firetruck had left, the hotel alarm remained, wasn’t a problem at first but as the issue was resolved relatively fast it became questionable after nearing 3 hours of listening to the alarm till finally it was turned off. all i got from desk before hand was they were trying to turn it off not really sounding like they knew how. in other words we were listening to this alarm longer than the firefighters were there, should that not be questionable for compensation?
Local and State Fire codes are strict, alarm systems are designed very sensitive, vaping in a room will set one off. I guess the Hotel should silence it since there is only a 2% chance of it being an actual fire(NOT). Hotels typically spend large amounts of money for testing twice per year, making sure that each and every detector is working along with all the whistles and bells. With Hilton an outside vendor, licensed and skilled must conduct the annual inspection with a semi-annual which can be conducted and logged in house. The staff and Managers hate the “false” alarm more than the customers but its a price we pay for Guest Safety. When one happens, each person has a job to do, I jump from my desk or meeting, grab a radio, zoom to the control panel and call engineering the location of the issue. Behind the scenes, doors are closing automatically, elevators are opening and shutting down, fire walls are closing, dampers are opening, fans begin whirling making the stairwells a ventilated safe zone, lobby doors open and huge atrium fans kick in to evacuate any smoke from the building. Even your guest room has fire walls, the door is UL rated with a specified burn time, every fixture from the drapes to the carpet are burn time specific.
Agreed the communication was a bit lacking as the front desk clerk should have empathized and apologized, I guess either you were the first to check out or the only one who expected compensation?
It should depend on if it’s a bad guest or a system fault which is tied to the hotel? If it’s the latter definitely but not a full refund unless it’s repeated then it’s gone well beyond the ‘Shit happens in life’ category. A random fire alarm is just that a random fire alarm.
Multiple fire alarms shouldn’t be tolerated. Fires don’t just go to sleep and wake up whenever. Only the classic Disney cartoons it works that way.
At a spa hotel with my 3 preteen kids. when there was a fire in the guest laundry. MY laundry! discovered the fire when I went to move the clothes. Fire dept said it was an electrical short. Night manager had me go through destroyed clothes after wards, around midnight, to give her a value. They also moved clothes that were in the wash, took them to the laundry room on the other side of the hotel, started them in the wash, gave me some quarters for the dryer so I could finish them myself. At1am. Then tried to bargain down the cost of the destroyed clothes, which were all inexpensive kids Target clothes, so low value. I stopped talking to her and said I would deal with the manager in the morning when we checked out. Got 1 night off the 3 night stay. That was it. That covered the cost of the clothes. I should have asked for more but at the time I was tired, stressed, angry at the night manager, and only wanted to move on. There was a wedding that night that was interrupted.. it was on the news. Lots of fire trucks.
It’s the new American way. “It wasn’t exactly the way I like so you should compensate me.” Wtf
This question down not have a black and white answer.
I don’t think people realize the comps are built into highend hotel budgets nor is this article taking into account that the type of lodging matters.
A Motel 6 level hotel isn’t offering the same service or expectations of a luxury hotel so I would just suck it up there. If I’m paying $250 or higher per night, yes the hotel is comping me (and they have.) Take a step further, if you are staying in a casino hotel, their entire industry is based on comps so not only did I have my room refunded for the night, I also received a breakfast credit and pool cabana comp.
Sure didn’t get anything from Hilton mystic when it malfunctioned twice in the middle of the night this summer.
Found out by calling front desk the hotel knew for sure the second was another false alarm….would be nice if they at least had a way to announce it was a false alarm.
There is one argument that I didn’t notice you making- most large facility alarms operate in zones. So, it may start local within a room, then if the alarm isn’t cleared by human intervention, it may go to a wing, then go to the entire property. So, my question would be if night staff investigated the alarm before it went general (assuming they have a system like this). If they did not, then it is human error and I believe you should be given some form of small compensation (maybe a thousand points or a free drink….and if it were at a resort, removal of the resort fee) for your troubles.