Why can't I send mail from my hotel room?

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

I signed up with a really nifty service, which is quick and easy to implement: Click here to check out smtp2go.
I used to spend many frustrating minutes (adding up to hours) first explaining to hotel staff what an smtp server is, and then persuading them to find the information for me. Some hotels (e.g. Ibis) don't allow any outgoing mail at all.

I work at a hotel property management group and I might be able to provide some info. I think there are a few separate issues listed here.

1) The issue that I am most knowledgeable about is the hotel email server redirect which not every hotel does. In most cases if your business/outlook mail servers will not go through when you try to send you can just use web mail and it will be fine. However, this is not the only issue we encounter and web mail may be a pain because of your contacts/data being in your business email program.

2. Another issue is that the hotel may not have an outgoing email redirect but has an ISP that does not work with your email ISP. This started a few years back and it is linked to spam. The ISP AT&T was one of the first big companies to start doing this. The hotel does not have a lot of control over this if they don't have their own mail server. From what I understand, this is caused by smtp relay no longer performing the ISP's email relay handoff as it once did, and as Leo said this is due to spam (at least I think so). Certain ISPs (such as Comcast) have set-up email authentication to fix this and these users tend to have less email trouble from that point on. Your company or ISP may be able to set this authentication up and solve this issue as well.

3. Whether or not the hotel is redirecting your mail, the hotel’s ISP can blacklist outgoing mail servers for the ISP location due to excessive spam. This problem is more and more common. Unfortunately there has been very little progress made in this area as far as the hotels are concerned because they often cannot afford the expense/time to manage this properly. This is because most often the internet access is free. Or, the hotel staff cannot justify the cost because they do not itemize the mark-up on the rooms for the internet. So, they don't see the profit associated with the internet access. Only at large hotels who charge for access have I ever seen this handled better. Small hotel/motel owners generally do not understand the network set-up any better than you or I and therefore do not see the need unless there network techs tell them. And, even then they do not see this as a necessity. Internet service in general works much better at higher quality hotels as can be expected.

4. The last issue I have seen is with VPN access email not working. This is rarely a hotel or ISP issue but it can be sometimes. I have found that requesting a public static IP address from hotel tech support or getting one automatically at the terms and conditions page will more likely resolve any issues with VPNs at the hotel. However, there is a chance it is the remote VPN server or the company mail server that is the problem.

When in doubt, I would call hotel tech support. Using your web mail, which is on the same port (port 80) as the internet, is almost always the easiest solution if you can tolerate this. This is the information I know from working with the IT company at our hotels for years. I am sorry if this is not completely accurate technically as I am not a tech. I would like to see more posts here to get these issues addressed with our IT people.

To post a comment on "Why can't I send mail from my hotel room?", please return to that article's main page.