The Fifteen Beacon Hotel is a boutique luxury property in the historic neighborhood of Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts. Opened in 1999, the Preferred Hotels & Resorts member property is just a stone’s throw from beautiful Boston Commons and caters primarily to high-end clientele and elite business travelers.
For eight years of The Fifteen Beacon Hotel’s 23 year existence, Matthew Chu has worked as the Director of Revenue and Reservations at the property. Early in his tenure, the hotel relied on cumbersome paper credit card authorization forms to process client transactions; however, these forms were not PCI compliant and their use would occasionally result in fraud and chargeback cases, which negatively impacted Fifteen Beacon’s bottom line.
“When we relied on paper forms to process credit cards, all of that sensitive data was stored on site in physical binders, which is less than ideal,” said Chu. “We had a hard time winning chargeback cases when they occurred and storing reams of paper with important information is something no modern hotel finance department ever wants to deal with.”
The Director of Revenue and Reservations knew that he needed a secure, PCI compliant alternative to paper forms if The Fifteen Beacon Hotel was ever to make chargebacks a thing of the past. Soon, he began the search for a modern solution that would meet the property’s needs.
It wasn’t long before Chu and the rest of the team at The Fifteen Beacon Hotel found Canary Technologies.
“We first heard about Canary through their partnership with Preferred Hotels & Resorts,” said Chu. “We’re a member property and when we found out that Canary’s Digital Authorizations was a Preferred-endorsed solution we wanted to check it out,” he continued.
After a short evaluation, Chu’s team realized that Canary provided the PCI compliant solution Fifteen Beacon needed and was the ideal tool — with its comprehensive dashboard and easy-to-use interface — for ending the use of insecure paper forms forever.
“Canary’s Digital Authorization solution has done everything we could ask of it,” said Chu. “In the four years we’ve used Canary, we haven’t received one chargeback from a card that’s been processed through their platform.”
The onset of COVID-19 imposed difficult times on many lodging properties, and it was no different for The Fifteen Beacon Hotel. During the pandemic, the property had to find ways to adapt its operations to meet the safety needs of both guests and staff. To accomplish this task, The Fifteen Beacon turned once again to a Preferred Hotels & Resorts-approved technology solution — Contactless Check-In by Canary Technologies.
Contactless Check-In by Canary provides hotels with the ability to seamlessly check-in guests without exchanging credit cards, IDs or registration forms. The solution is tailor-made for hotels, improves front desk efficiency by 30-50%, and reduces chargebacks and fraud by 75-90%.
“We already trusted Canary for its Digital Authorizations solution, so we had no hesitation about implementing Canary’s Contactless Check-In product to help us deal with safety requirements imposed by the pandemic,” said the Director of Revenue and Reservations. “However, as the pandemic started to wane, we realized that the process of having guests handle the administrative parts of check-in prior to arrival created a more personalized and welcoming experience when they got to the front desk.”
Chu explained that Fifteen Beacon’s guests actually prefer going through the check-in process from their mobile device as it allows them to take more ownership over their experience and enables easier conversations at the front desk. And since many guests include an ETA during their mobile check-in, the property’s staff are now prepared for every guest exactly when they arrive.
“At The Fifteen Beacon Hotel, we are extremely dedicated to providing a high level of service to our clientele. Anything we can do to enhance the guest experience, we will do,” said Chu. “It’s clear that our guests prefer this method of checking in, and we can now dedicate every moment someone is at the front desk to telling them everything that’s great about the property and surrounding neighborhood. It’s a win for our guests, and a win for our staff,” he said.
Director Chu said his property’s experience with Canary has been exemplary and highly recommends the platform and its solutions to all Preferred Hotels & Resorts member properties and luxury hotels.
“Canary is very easy to use and much of the platform is self-explanatory. Our entire experience with Canary’s products and their team has been nothing but positive,” said Chu. “Their Digital Authorizations solution has brought us into full PCI compliance and Contactless Check-In has created a better arrival experience for our guests. And on top of everything, their team has been very responsive and great to work with. I couldn’t recommend them more highly.”
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