Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. News

Marriott to accept Apple Pay for your hotel incidentals

Les Shu
By

marriott first big hotel chain to accept apple pay teases watch app nfc press image
Shortly after Apple’s keynote on March 9, Marriott announced that it would be the first major hotel company to accept Apple Pay. In lieu of handing over a physical credit card, guests could simply tap their iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, or Apple Watch to a contactless reader at the front desk, which Marriott says would allow for a faster check-in process.

The service will begin this summer at 11 Marriott properties in big cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, and then rolling out to more hotels afterward. Besides its namesake brand, Marriott is also installing Apple Pay in Residence Inn, Courtyard, Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance, Edition, and other brands in its portfolio.

Recommended Videos

Since 2013, when it launched its mobile app, Marriott has been increasingly integrating mobile-based services to cater to the 75 percent of guests who carry one or more smart devices. Users can already book rooms, check-in/check-out virtually, order amenities, chat with hotel personnel, control in-room televisions, and more. As more and more of its guests are using mobile devices and embracing technology, Marriott has been aggressive in experimenting with new technologies to enhance its services. Adding Apple Pay seems to be a natural extension of those offerings.

Related

“Millions of customers already use Marriott Mobile to quickly book a hotel, check-in, or check out,” George Corbin, senior vice president of Marriott Digital, says in a release. “Now, Apple Pay can make it virtually effortless.”

Marriott also indicated that it would have an app ready for the new Apple Watch. The Marriott Apple Watch app would let guests check in or be notified when their rooms are ready. During the keynote presentation, Apple’s Kevin Lynch demonstrated using Marriott-competitor Starwood’s Apple Watch app to unlock a hotel room door. However, Marriott hasn’t mentioned if it will also have such a feature in its watch app (Corbin told the San Jose Mercury News last year that Marriott is waiting for potential bugs to be resolved with mobile unlocking).

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Les Shu
Les Shu
Former Digital Trends Contributor
I am formerly a senior editor at Digital Trends. I bring with me more than a decade of tech and lifestyle journalism…
Trading in your iPhone with Apple? You’ll get less than yesterday
An iPhone 14 Pro Max with the display turned on. We see the Home Screen and Pixel Pals running in the Dynamic Island.

For the second time in two months, Apple has reduced the trade-in values of many of its iPhones and other products.

Spotted by MacRumors, the adjustments are pretty significant for some of its handsets.

Read more
Your next Apple Pencil could select colors from real-world objects
Drawing with the Apple Pencil on the iPad Pro (2022).

Apple recently filed for a patent that indicates a major feature update is coming to a possible future generation of the Apple Pencil. The patent is for image sensors that can detect colors on real-world surfaces, plus their physical texture. If implemented, new Apple Pencils could make it easier than ever before for artists and designers to find and match color samples without needing to search for them digitally.

The patent, spotted first by Patently Apple, indicates that the sensor would be toward to tip of the pencil, meaning that to get a color sample, all someone would need to do is position the "drawing" end of the smart pencil toward an object to seamlessly sample its color and texture onto a paired Apple device. If brought to Apple Pencils, the feature would be a huge step forward for digital artists.

Read more
In 2023, it’s time to finally ditch your real wallet for Apple Pay
Front of Apple Card

In the early 2000s, the U.S. started accepting contactless payments at credit card terminals, which used near-field communication (NFC) technology to make it happen. However, it was still too early and not widely adopted until 2008, when the major credit card companies began to offer contactless credit cards.

But contactless payments continued to evolve. Soon enough, Apple added Apple Pay in 2014, allowing you to add your credit and debit cards in the digital Wallet app and pay with your phone. There is also Google Pay for Android devices, and even Samsung has its own version of mobile payments called Samsung Pay.

Read more