Whether Anybody Else Holds Your Keys

The four questions

The same four questions, asked of every part

What this part buys	With a key handed over, tighter stacking and often a shorter walk. Without, the certainty that the car is where you left it.
What makes it move	How the lot is laid out. Stacked parking needs keys because cars have to be shuffled; a marked bay does not.
What to ask when you call	Whether keys are held, where they are held, and who has access to them outside staffed hours.
What cannot be promised about it	Any statement about what happens to a vehicle in somebody else's custody. This desk has no standing to make one and does not.

Why anybody stacks cars

Because ground is the floor under the price, and stacking fits more cars onto the same ground.

A lot that stacks two or three deep gets substantially more out of its acreage, which is why stacked arrangements can be quoted lower than marked bays on comparable ground. That discount is real, and what it costs is that the car has to be movable.

That is the whole trade, stated plainly. Everything else about valet parking follows from it.

The three arrangements

1. You keep the key. Marked bay, you park it, you walk away, nobody can move it. The simplest arrangement and the one with the fewest questions attached.
2. A key box. You leave the key at a booth or in a lock box, staff can move the car if the row needs shuffling. Common at small lots with awkward ground.
3. Attended valet. Somebody takes the car at the door and returns it on your call. Shortest walk of the three, most hands on the vehicle.

None is wrong. The mistake is not knowing which one you have booked, and quotes do not always say.

What to ask, and it is three things

• Are keys held.
• If they are, where are they held physically.
• Who has access to them between staffed hours.

The third is the one that gets a real answer or a vague one, and the difference between those two answers is the most informative thing you will learn about an operator.

What this desk does about it

Asks, on your behalf, and prints the answer in the quote. Where an operator will not say, the quote says that instead, which is also an answer.

No page here will characterize anybody's key handling as safe or unsafe. That is a statement about somebody else's operation and this company has not inspected one. The disclaimer says the same in the language of small print.

Practical

• If anything in the car matters, take it with you regardless of the arrangement.
• A key box in an unstaffed hour is a lock box on a wall. Weigh that as you like.
• Ask before you book. Asking afterwards, at the gate, at five in the morning, is asking too late.