Hotel Key Card

There are 2 systems that hotel uses for their locks, magnetic stripe and RFID.

There is a simple way to check whether you are using magnetic stripe card or RFID card;
1. Check if there is an arrow at the front;
2. Check if there is a black (sometimes brown, silver or gold) magnetic stripe at the back side.
If both yes, then it’s a magnetic stripe card.
If you cannot see anything on the card surface – even if sometimes you can see an arrow on the front – you are using an RFID card.
To double confirm, put the card in front of a bright light, you would see the copper antenna inside like shown in
the picture below.

Nexqo provides hotel key card for not only the following locking systems.

Saflok, Kaba, Onity, MIWA, Salto, Ilco, etc.

Frequently used magnetic stripe for hotel key card:
300 Oe, 650 Oe, and 2750 Oe;
Frequently used RFID chip for hotel key card:
Atmel T5577
NXP MIFARE Classic 1K (for guest)
NXP MIFARE Classic 4K (for staff)
NXP MIFARE Ultralight EV1

If you are asking whether we are able to tell you which magstripe or chip type the key card is if we know which locking system
the hotel is using.

The answer is NO.

Different hotels may use different chips or magnetic stripes even if they are using the same locking system.
So, we would need 2 types of sample cards for testing;

1. One that hotel is already used;
2. One that hotel never used.

2 pcs each would be the best. Once we’ve tested the cards, we will get to know what kind of magstripe or RFID chip
we need to use for the key card.

Don’t you worry if you don’t have any cards in your hand, contact us for a sample pack to test in the hotel.

Normally, we provide preprinted cards with magnetic stripe or RFID chip only without encoding. The hotel will encode each
hotel card with an encoder, only an encoded key card could open the right door.

Hotels change their key card frequently in order to maintain their image branding, which also pushes the
cost higher – especially when the chip they are using happens to be an expensive one.

2. Make the finishing with matt or matt + instead of glossy;
Glossy card will easily get obvious scratches on the card surface after limited uses,
changing the surface to matt would be much better and lasting a decent image of the brand;

3. Put the key card to a card holder when necessary

Click here to see what crafts we can make for hotel key card.