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My son LOVES to travel and he loves to check into a new hotel. He recently revealed that the big appeal is when there are two side-by-side beds and he can jump from one to the other. He’s five and a half …

The other thing he loves is getting to watch Netflix or Disney+, though of course, not all hotels offer streaming platforms on their TVs. But when they do, I sign in and let the kids watch some of their favorite shows.

Some hotels, like the Ritz-Carlton, will sign you out of your streaming accounts when you leave. It’s part of the check-out process so if you forget to do it, you can rest assured that the hotel will do it for you. But just because some hotels do this, don’t expect that all do.

We recently checked into a hotel that had a television in the living room and one in each of the two bedrooms and every TV still had the previous user’s accounts logged in to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and Disney+.

While it may be tempting to just use someone else’s account since you’re already logged in, I strongly advise against it. You probably wouldn’t want strangers using your accounts and whatever you watch will show up in their watch history and influence the shows that are then recommended to them, messing up their algorithms.

My son wanted to watch Grizzy and the Lemmings on Netflix (he’s obsessed!) but I didn’t want to use the previous guest’s already-logged-into account. I had full access to her account, by the way, and could see her email address and was given the option to delete her profile or upgrade her account for $5/month. No bueno.

I spent a good 15 minutes trying to find the Sign Out button before finally locating by clicking on ‘Help’. I’m not sure if the Sign Out option displays differently depending on the TV you’re using but that’s where I found it on this particular TV.

Occasionally, I’ve gone into my Netflix account and seen shows in my ‘Continue Watching’ list that I know I haven’t watched so of course I wonder if I’ve forgotten to sign out on a hotel TV. I’m not so concerned about other people using my account as I am about them having access to my personal and payment information.

If you think you may not have signed out of your account on a shared device somewhere, below is a video demonstrating how to sign out of Netflix on all devices. Here’s how to sign out of Hulu on all devices and here’s how to sign out of Disney+ on all devices. This might give you peace of mind and is probably a good idea to do every now and then. I know I will.

YouTube video

3 Comments On "Don't Forget to Do This Every Time You Check Out of a Hotel"
  1. Sandy Keaton|

    Thank you for the information on the carbon monoxide device. I ordered it from Amazon and received it yesterday.
    Sandy

  2. Clifford M Hamblen|

    That is a good tip. I was staying at an air B and B home rental in Hawaii and I signed into my VUDU account to watch some of the movies I own on the service. We were there for 8 days and when we left I didn’t think of signing out of the VUDU app on the smart TV. About a few months later I started seeing movie purchases on my credit card account that I didn’t remember watching. I contacted VUDU and of course they were rented at the rental house in Hawaii by someone else that stayed there after us. It was an expensive lesson.

  3. James H|

    I bring a roku stick with me, it logs into the hotel wifi using help from the phone. You can Google for instructions. And yes I did leave it one time but got it back.

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