Booking a hotel room as a minor

[Gonçalo]

Hello!
I'm going to Montreal in December and I'll spend both Christmas and New Year there. Me and my girlfriend planned, with our parents consent, that we would spend the New Year out in the city and then we would sleep in a hotel that night, from December 31 to January 1.
I'm Portuguese and she's French, but she's a Canadian permanent resident. I'll be 16 and she'll be 17 by that time.

This are the hotels we were thinking about:
- Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth
- Sofitel Montreal Golden Mile
- InterContinental Montreal
- Hotel Le Crystal Montreal
- W Montreal

The question is, since we are both minors will we be able to book a room? Should her parents call the hotel before the reservation? I've seen people saying that our parents can book it and be there while we do the check-in and check-out and that we'll have no problems since they won't know that they won't be staying there with us.
I'm from Porto, Portugal that means my parents won't be there, so her parents are responsible for me (I have a letter recognized by the notary stating that) will that be enough for her mother to write a permission to let us stay in the hotel if required?

Thanks!

[lovefrom2800milesaway]

Do either of you have a credit card? You generally need a credit card at check-in to pay the deposit and cost of the hotel room. I'd say generally you need to be of age in the province to check-in/book the hotel room. When my sister was a minor and needed a hotel room, I helped her book it (I was of age) and I personally went there to check-in with her. After I got the keys, I just gave them to her and let her be. The next morning, I went back to the hotel to check out for her since it was under my name.
So I'd say give the hotel a call and if your SO isn't able to check in/book it herself, ask her parents to do it and just pay them back.
Keep in mind the check out time on the 1at too if you need her parents to travel to check out for you!

[snow_girl]

Regardless of a credit card, which I doubt anyone under 18 has, they won't let you book a room. Best thing to do it call and see what their policy is. Also the Fairmont is bloody expensive, can you afford it?

[Gonçalo]

Do either of you have a credit card? You generally need a credit card at check-in to pay the deposit and cost of the hotel room. I'd say generally you need to be of age in the province to check-in/book the hotel room. When my sister was a minor and needed a hotel room, I helped her book it (I was of age) and I personally went there to check-in with her. After I got the keys, I just gave them to her and let her be. The next morning, I went back to the hotel to check out for her since it was under my name.
So I'd say give the hotel a call and if your SO isn't able to check in/book it herself, ask her parents to do it and just pay them back.
Keep in mind the check out time on the 1at too if you need her parents to travel to check out for you!

Thanks for the answer! I think I'll go for the second option since I don't have a credit card. Her parents will check-in and check-out with us!

Regardless of a credit card, which I doubt anyone under 18 has, they won't let you book a room. Best thing to do it call and see what their policy is. Also the Fairmont is bloody expensive, can you afford it?

I think I'll just go ahead and do what lovefrom2800milesaway suggested and have her parents to check-in and give us the key!
And yes, it's just one night and since it's the New Year we want a nice view to the city, something more extravagant.

[Dziubka]

Regardless of a credit card, which I doubt anyone under 18 has, they won't let you book a room.

Out of curiosity: Is it like that everywhere?

I travelled alone (with other underage friends or with my then-boyfriend, but without parents) as a minor in Germany and I never had any problems checking in at hostels. I think once there was a mixed dorm that you weren't technically allowed at at under 16, but I just sort of wrote the last digit of my birth year a bit sloppily (oops!) and no one really cared either way. My SO also already travelled alone before he was 18 and seeing has he has never mentioned anything about it, I guess they didn't have problems checking into hotels or hostels either.
It would never have occued to under-18-me that I could be unable to book a hotel

Is it just our lax European countries (and almost 10 years ago)?

*edit
Because I don't want to be totally uselss:
Gonçalo, the only way you can know for sure, is that your girlfriend are you call the hotel and simply ask. They'll be able to tell you if you need a letter from both your parents, a credit card or whatever.

[lucybelle]

Shoot in the USA you can't book a hotel room if you're under 21!

When my friends and I graduated high school we booked a hotel, I even called to make sure it was okay we were 18. We got there and the lady refused to let us check in, saying one of us had to be 21. So we stayed at a really shitty hotel down the street that let us stay as 18 year olds.

I think youth hostels since they have the word "youth" in them are more liberal with ages. But checking into a hotel that costs $100+ a night? Hell I wouldn't want a ton of unsupervised 16 year olds there either!

[Gonçalo]

Out of curiosity: Is it like that everywhere?

I travelled alone (with other underage friends or with my then-boyfriend, but without parents) as a minor in Germany and I never had any problems checking in at hostels. I think once there was a mixed dorm that you weren't technically allowed at at under 16, but I just sort of wrote the last digit of my birth year a bit sloppily (oops!) and no one really cared either way. My SO also already travelled alone before he was 18 and seeing has he has never mentioned anything about it, I guess they didn't have problems checking into hotels or hostels either.
It would never have occued to under-18-me that I could be unable to book a hotel

Is it just our lax European countries (and almost 10 years ago)?

*edit
Because I don't want to be totally uselss:
Gonçalo, the only way you can know for sure, is that your girlfriend are you call the hotel and simply ask. They'll be able to tell you if you need a letter from both your parents, a credit card or whatever.

Thanks for the tip, we will call and e-mail the hotel we have chosen and ask the question.

Shoot in the USA you can't book a hotel room if you're under 21!

When my friends and I graduated high school we booked a hotel, I even called to make sure it was okay we were 18. We got there and the lady refused to let us check in, saying one of us had to be 21. So we stayed at a really shitty hotel down the street that let us stay as 18 year olds.

I think youth hostels since they have the word "youth" in them are more liberal with ages. But checking into a hotel that costs $100+ a night? Hell I wouldn't want a ton of unsupervised 16 year olds there either!

Well an Youth Hostel is not really an option. We want Hotel St Paul or Queen Elizabeth, since it's New Year we want a comfortable room and privacy, something that we won't get in a Youth Hostel. But I've e-mailed and I'm going to call the hotel, if that doesn't work we'll just have her parents to do the check-in for us and hand us the key, they don't really need to know who's going to stay in the room.

[CynicalQuixotic]

Shoot in the USA you can't book a hotel room if you're under 21!

When my friends and I graduated high school we booked a hotel, I even called to make sure it was okay we were 18. We got there and the lady refused to let us check in, saying one of us had to be 21. So we stayed at a really shitty hotel down the street that let us stay as 18 year olds.

I think youth hostels since they have the word "youth" in them are more liberal with ages. But checking into a hotel that costs $100+ a night? Hell I wouldn't want a ton of unsupervised 16 year olds there either!

I think it depends on the hotel. My ex and I went on our first grown-up vacation by ourselves to Williamsburg when we were 19/20, and we had no problems booking a room at a Holiday Inn-type place.

Well an Youth Hostel is not really an option. We want Hotel St Paul or Queen Elizabeth, since it's New Year we want a comfortable room and privacy, something that we won't get in a Youth Hostel. But I've e-mailed and I'm going to call the hotel, if that doesn't work we'll just have her parents to do the check-in for us and hand us the key, they don't really need to know who's going to stay in the room.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the first time you and your girlfriend are meeting each other? Are you sure her parents really would be ok with being there at check-in and check-out to give the illusion that it's they who are staying there?

[Gonçalo]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the first time you and your girlfriend are meeting each other? Are you sure her parents really would be ok with being there at check-in and check-out to give the illusion that it's they who are staying there?

Hey,
Yes it's the first time we are meeting each other, we will be together for 18 days and the hotel thingy is at the end of my stay there. I think her parents would be totally okay with it but we have discussed it (me and my SO) and we decided that we would be honest and not lie.

She called St Paul Hotel and asked them whether they accepted minors there or not (unaccompanied). They said they did, we booked the room and in the next day they call her telling that she would have to cancel the booking because actually they were not accepting minors any more. She got really frustrated, there was a lot of money invested in that booking but we were lucky enough to get a free cancellation.

I called like 10 hotels (international call, my father will kill me when he gets the phone bill) and denial after denial I spoke with the manager of both Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth and Hotel Le Germain and they accept minors, the adult just needs to sign a waiver at the check-in to take responsibility if anything goes wrong. So right now, I e-mailed both those hotels to ask the question again (well, gotta be double sure) and then we are deciding the hotel we are going to spend our first New Year in!

I'm really excited, thanks for all the help guys!

[Redheart14]

Sounds like it's been a complicated process.