Last summer, Hilton introduced digital check-in and room selection via smartphone app for members of its HHonors program, and now the company is rolling out another upgrade that will let HHonors Silver, Gold and Diamond members use the app as a room key.

“By early 2016, HHonors members will be able to use their smartphones as their room key to enter more than 170,000 rooms at 250 U.S. properties within the Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, Conrad Hotels & Resorts and Canopy by Hilton brands,” the company said. The app will also open other doors at the hotel that might require a guest room key, such as fitness rooms and business centers.

With the new Digital Key upgrade, HHonors members who booked directly with Hilton and who select a room via the HHonors app no sooner than the day before arrival will be asked if they’d like to use the room key app. If they say yes, it will be issued when the room is ready on the day they arrive, so they can go directly to the room and bypass the front desk.

Initially available for iOS devices, Digital Key will be available for Android users later this year, Hilton said. It just started beta testing at the Hilton Alexandria Old Town in Alexandria, Va., and will be added over the course of the year at more properties.

Members who elect to use Digital Key will get 2,500 bonus HHonors points.

Hilton said that since it deployed the digital check-in and room selection features on the HHonors app last year, the app has been downloaded more than 2 million times and used for room check-ins more than 5 million times.

Other chains have rolled out similar electronic room key tests, but none seem to have been widely adopted, or perfected. Have you used something other than a key card to enter your room lately? How’d that work?

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