Handing over the keys to holiday apartments and holiday homes

Key handover directly at the holiday apartment using masunt key safes – straightforward and secure.

For most owners and managers of holiday homes, it’s the little things that cause headaches. Especially if you’re managing your holiday home from another town or city, key handover can become something of a stress factor. Even if you’d like to go to the effort of greeting your guests in person, a delayed flight, heavy traffic or bad weather always has the potential to turn a nice idea into an unfavourable situation. While nobody’s to blame for complications like these, they then mean you need to wait for your guests. Or, perhaps you can’t hand over the keys in person due to an appointment, or maybe also because you don’t live in the immediate vicinity of the accommodation. Key handover becomes a particularly inconvenient process when holidaymakers are only booked in for a few nights, meaning you have to commute back and forth between your holiday apartment and place of residence every few days. If only the issue of key handover weren’t always so time-consuming, renting out holiday apartments would be even more fun.

 
Customer testimonial: ‘I have a holiday apartment in Ticino – so I can easily generate the code from my place of residence and pass it on to my guests by email or text message. Here’s a picture – smile – showing the safe being put to good use.’ (Cornelia Centeno)

Key handover to holidaymakers using a key safe

Especially when guests are stuck in traffic on their arrival date, the last thing you want is for key handover to become another stress factor. Small key safes – also known as key repositories – provide a straightforward and secure way of handing over keys directly at the holiday apartment. Your guests can access the key straight away by entering the correct combination on the dial. This means that you – the landlord – no longer need to be present in person to hand over the keys, and guests can access the holiday home at practically any time of day.

You can easily generate the required access code online and send it to holidaymakers by email, text message or telephone. Another practical aspect is that you can set a time limit for the access codes, which also ensures that holiday guests only have access to the holiday apartment during the period they’ve booked for.

Testimonial: Customer Testimonial: 'Dear Mr Schacht, This was a great campaign. I’m still enthusiastic about your code generation product, at least after some teething problems after converting the website. One thing I absolutely loved was the fact that Mr Untiedt was such a responsive contact. Please find attached a photo of the installed safe. Unfortunately, I only have one and I live some 100 km away, which is too far away to take a second one. This picture is the one I give to my holiday guests in their pre-arrival information pack. By the way, I’ve actually recommended your safe a few times. Also, friends of friends (who are effectively strangers to me) occasionally call me up to hear my testimonial.’ (Gaby Scheele)

An additional benefit: easy access for service providers

Also, when it comes to organising certain service providers, using key safes is a very popular solution, since the keys can be handed over at any time – even outside of opening hours.

A key safe is therefore particularly suitable for handing over keys to cleaning staff, tradesmen and the fire brigade, or even simply as a secure place to store a second key. Since every code generation process is precisely documented, this also rules out the possibility of misuse, since the person requesting the code can be precisely tracked. Our key safes are excellently suited to use outdoors. Due to their stainless steel walls measuring 3 mm thick, they are robust, durable and protected against adverse weather conditions.

Customer testimonial: ‘Dear Mr Schacht, Please find attached four pictures of the key safe at my holiday apartment. You are welcome to use them as part of a testimonial.’ (Heiko Arends)

The masunt key safe – secure and convenient

The key safe does not need a power connection or an internet connection. The key safe is more than just a secure and convenient alternative for handing keys over to holidaymakers. It is also totally reliable, since the key safe isn’t affected by outages during power failures.

Handing over keys for holiday homes can become a real pain for the landlord. On the one hand, traditional key handover requires the landlord to be present in person. On the other, scheduled on-site key handover times are often lengthened by unfortunately delayed arrivals. So, in the worst-case scenario, the landlord may have to wait for hours or, if the holidaymakers cannot make alternative arrangements, both the arrival time and therefore key handover may have to take place late at night.

Key handover is also an inconvenience for landlords whose holiday homes are situated far away from their own homes. Key handover becomes a particularly inconvenient process when holidaymakers are only booked in for a few nights, meaning you have to commute back and forth between your holiday home and place of residence every few days. In a situation such as this, the most practical solution is to entrust a service provider with handing the keys over to holidaymakers, but this option incurs additional costs. An alternative solution is to leave the key to the holiday home under the doormat or somewhere else in the garden. This, unfortunately, is an all-too-frequent occurrence. But this gives potential burglars an easy ride.

Testimonial from Ralph and Katha Ott

We first entered the holiday home rental business back in 2016. We now have four holiday homes in Julianadorp, North Holland. For more information, visit www.ralphott.de. On the one hand, we attached a great deal of importance to finding a professional key handover solution. On the other, we wanted to handle key handover in a modern way that would fit in with our guest services. That’s why we quickly opted for the masunt key safe. First of all, we started out with one safe and tested it for the house that we use ourselves. Today, all four houses are equipped with the safe. For our part, we enjoy not having to carry a key for all our houses throughout the entire park. Our cleaning ladies use the user code we assign individually for each house and, when we bring tradesmen in to perform work, they then receive the code using the WhiteList function. It doesn’t get any better, more transparent, simpler or safer than this!

Another argument in favour of using a key safe – and one that’s very important – is contents / theft insurance. Have a read through your policy. It will contain a passage explaining that, if your property is burgled, you will only be covered by your holiday home insurance if the door or window show signs of forced entry. Here, insurance companies have already found that the codes for manual safes remain valid for far too long – in other words, they’re known to a lot of people! Our guests are always amazed when we tell them how we generate the online code and that their specific code is valid only for their stay. Another thing our guests love is the security of leaving their personal valuables in our homes.

Finally, we can only praise Mr Untiedt’s and Mr Schacht’s support. If you have any questions, the time they take to respond by email is absolutely fantastic. Thank you for such an amazing cooperative relationship. We can really only recommend both the company and the product.

Ralph & Katha Ott

Key handover to holidaymakers using a key safe – the convenient alternative

A practical alternative for convenient and secure key handover for holiday homes is the use of a masunt key safe – also known as a key repository. As the landlord, you no longer need to be present in person to hand over the keys, and guests can access the holiday home at practically any time of day.

You can easily generate the required access code online and send it to holidaymakers by email, text message or telephone. Another practical aspect is that you can set a time limit for the access codes, which also ensures that holiday guests only have access to the holiday home during the period they’ve booked for.

The masunt key safe is used for simple and secure key handover for holiday homes.

An additional benefit: easy access for service providers

This is particularly convenient with regard to an additional point. That way, you can also conveniently provide cleaners and other service providers with temporary access. You can also give authorisation to people who constantly need access to your holiday home – like cleaners – with an access code that is valid for two hours only. Since every code generation process is precisely documented, this also rules out the possibility of misuse, since the person requesting the code can be precisely tracked.

The robust masunt key safe makes key handover for holiday homes a great deal easier.

Secure, convenient and reliable!

Since the masunt key safe doesn’t need a power supply or internet connection either, it’s more than just a secure and convenient alternative for handing keys over to holidaymakers. It is also totally reliable, since the key safe isn’t affected by any outages during power failures.