When John Burrows arrived at the Hilton New York last month and found him- self stalled in the long check-in line, his eye wandered to a bank of polished, electronic kiosks. A hotel employee asked the insurance executive from Hartford, Conn., if he wanted to take the new machine for a test spin. "About a minute later I was on my way to my room, while everyone else was still waiting," Burrows remembers.

Travelers have used this type of self-service check-in kiosk in airports for almost a decade, with some hesitancy. As the technology steadily has improved--eliminating the blank screens and "system errors" that greeted many customers--airlines have added more machines. Now hotels are plugging in as well, hoping to get weary travelers to their rooms faster. After suffering a false start with kiosks in 1997, Hilton rolled out machines in New York and Chicago early this year. It joins Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which already operates terminals in some of its W and Sheraton properties.

Express lane. Fast and free of charge, these terminals hold an obvious appeal. Ed Friedman of Mendham, N.J., used a self-service terminal at the upscale W New York-Times Square in January. The check-in machine worked a lot like an airline kiosk. It asked for a credit card to locate his reservation, assigned him a room, and issued a plastic key card. "It was quick and easy," recalls the financial services executive. "If I had done it the old-fashioned way, I would have waited in a line for 15 minutes. I was done in a fraction of the time."

But the hotel kiosks don't just churn out keys. They also allow you to collect and exchange loyalty points for benefits such as room upgrades, print food and beverage coupons for hotel amenities, get a seat assignment on your next flight (yes, even at the hotel terminals), and E-mail yourself your final hotel bill. With the ability to quickly tempt patrons with room or flight seating upgrades, they can also earn the businesses that use these terminals extra money. Kiosk transactions will account for more than $1 trillion by 2007, according to estimates by IHL Consulting.

Not that they're problem free. Bob Harrell, an airline expert who has followed the evolution of kiosks, says the biggest problems were caused by new kiosk machines trying to connect to aging airline reservation systems. Many of those kinks are gone, but occasional tech glitches are inevitable. And there's still some human error to account for: The kiosks "run out of paper, and there's no one there who knows how to replace it," he says.

Even Burrows, who is now a devotee of the machines, recently discovered the technology is far from perfect. On a subsequent visit to the Hilton New York, he made a beeline to the self-service terminal, checked in, and headed to his room. Or so he thought. "When I opened the door, somebody was already in there," he remembers. That's when he discovered one of the limits of the kiosks: You can't complain to them.

CUT THE LINE

AIRPORTS. Kiosks are now a common way to get a boarding pass. More than 7,600 of the machines are in use across North America.

HOTELS. Hilton, Sheraton, and W hotels have started using check-in machines to cut down on lines in the lobbies.