Careless Connections: Hotel Guest Breaks Up With Girlfriend After Her Phone Auto-Connects To Love Hotel Wifi

Today, we have a somewhat funny story from China where a hotel guest went to an hourly (love) hotel with his girlfriend and noticed her phone auto-connecting to the hotel’s Wi-Fi network. This situation didn’t go very well as their relationship ended shortly after (well, […]

May 16, 2025 - 16:08

Today, we have a somewhat funny story from China where a hotel guest went to an hourly (love) hotel with his girlfriend and noticed her phone auto-connecting to the hotel’s Wi-Fi network.

This situation didn’t go very well as their relationship ended shortly after (well, instantly) because of this, as the guy suspected cheating was going on.

Usually, phones don’t connect to unknown networks, so that was certainly an odd situation and the hotel guest had quite a sharp eye but there are of course exceptions to this.

The situation was reported by the South China Morning Post here in Hong Kong and has been discussed by many locals this week (I overheard someone mentioning it at the cafe).

Chinese man ditches ‘cheating’ girlfriend after her phone auto-connects to hotel Wi-fi
Jilted woman pleads innocence after hotel spat with now ex, seeks help from TV station to corroborate her story, gets support online
A Chinese man broke up with his girlfriend after he discovered her phone automatically connecting to the Wi-fi of a hotel they went to for the first time together.
The woman, surnamed Li, told Chongqing TV that her smartphone auto-connected to the Wi-fi at the reception desk of a hotel in southwestern China’s Chongqing municipality during the May Day holiday.
Both Li and her now ex-boyfriend noticed it as Li was trying to find her digital identity card because she forgot to bring her actual ID card required to check in.
As both are Chongqing locals, the man asked Li if she had been to the hotel with someone else before.
Li said it was the first time she had been to the hotel, and she could not explain why her phone auto-connected to the Wi-fi there.
They could not settle the argument, and the man ditched her thinking she was not loyal.
Li said even her friends did not believe her, adding that she felt insulted, and looked up the reason herself to prove her innocence.
She then realised that another hotel in Chongqing where she used to work, offered Wi-fi with the same username and passcode.
She contacted her angry ex-boyfriend to explain, but he refused to talk to her, and deleted her account on a chat app.
Li contacted Chongqing TV to have a chance to explain herself.
She added that she did not intend to get back together with the man who does not trust her.
A TV reporter went to Li’s workplace and connected to the Wi-fi at their reception desk, and went to the hotel Li and her ex-boyfriend visited to test her story.
The reporter’s phone also auto-connected to the Wi-fi there.
A cybersecurity specialist, surnamed Liu, told Chongqing TV that it is normal for the smartphone to auto-connect to a new Wi-fi with the same username and password, if the device had automatically saved previous login information.
He also advised people to turn off the auto-save function as it can be a security risk. …

Well, let’s start by saying that it’s not uncommon in China and many other Asian countries to go to a short time hotel with someone for personal time as even many adults still live in their family home with little to no privacy, that alone wasn’t the issue.

But depending on their circumstances, was his reaction justified or too harsh? After all, he probably goes there himself quite often, so why isn’t she afforded the same privilege?

I gathered some background for this story, and it turns out the phone she used was relatively new, so this last visit he assumed happened couldn’t have been too long ago, even if it was accurate.

While the lady came up with a somewhat believable excuse that reporters verified independently, it’s really not that uncommon that your device connects to the same wifi if it’s an identical name.

This is often the case in chain hotels, and apparently, this hourly hotel they visited was indeed a chain hotel.

You’ll notice the same pattern when you stay a lot at Hyatt, Hilton, IHG and Marriott hotels that use generic names for their networks. My laptop and phone frequently connect automatically to networks like @Hyatt_WiFi, HHonors etc even though it sometimes requires a new entry of your current room number and name for authentication.

Conclusion

A Chinese hotel customer checked in with his girlfriend to a hourly (love) hotel and noticed that her phone connected to the local wifi as soon as they entered the door. This seemed suspicious to him and he decided to break it off with her, citing she must have frequented that place before, obviously with someone else.

The lady’s story made nationwide news and opinion were split about this. Although she managed to present a somewhat believable story that a previous workplace (also a hotel) used the same wifi name. A reporter even verified all this and his phone acted the same way with auto connect.

I guess the moral of the story is that first assumptions aren’t always right, just because you have a hot idea. But IF you’re in the position where discretion is important then you should really think of everything including deleting networks with suspicious, easily identifiable names from your browser history.

This is the stuff K-Dramas are made of. Good times!

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