LISTFRIENDS,


Thanks to all of you who have replied to my posting about Hyatt and all
the good ideas as well as the sympathy and outrage.

The information I supplied was part of a longer letter that was sent to
the CEO. In addition to posting the information on the list I sent an
e-mail copy to the hospital CEO with the following cover letter. (I will
be sending a copy of the full text of the original letter to some of you
and if anybody else is interested please contact me directly.)

***********


October 15, 1997

RE: Hyatt at University Village


Leo Henikoff,
Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center
1653 W. Congress Parkway
Chicago, Illinois 60612

Dear Dr. Henikoff,

Enclosed please find a copy of a letter I faxed to Mr.Douglas Geoga,
president of the Hyatt Hotel chain.  I sent him to apprise him of the
serious incident which occurred during my last visit to my physician at
Rush.  My reservation which had been confirmed earlier that day was not
honored due to overbooking and the alternate arrangements that they made
were not only inconvenient but resulted in what could have been a
serious accident.

To compound matters I have heard nothing from Hyatt since the letter was
sent over 2 weeks ago.  I thought that you should be aware of the
situation since you are distributing brochures advertising the Hyatt as
equipped to deal with needs of patients and their families which no
longer seems to be entirely true.  I hope this information is useful to
you.
Sincerely,



*************
Later that afternoon I faxed another copy to the Hyatt CEO with the
following cover letter:

 Dear Mr. Geoga,
 I am sending you another copy of my fax of 2 weeks ago. To date I have
not even received an acknowledgment of your receipt of my complaint. I
hope this is an oversight which will be remedied soon. While I did not
want to get involved with attorneys and have not filed a formal
complaint except directly with you, I wish to assure you that the lack
of the courtesy of a reply will be taken as a demonstration of Hyatt's
corporate indifference rather than the act of a single manager. I wish
to assure you that if I reach such a conclusion, the involvement of
regulatory, consumer protection and possibly a civil suit will follow
rapidly.
***********************


About an hour later I received a call from the general manager of the
Hyatt that made the error.  He was extremely apologetic as might be
anticipated.  His telephone response was in regard to the e-mail sent to
the hospital which they forwarded to him immediately.  He told me that a
letter was in the mail (which he subsequently faxed to me and follows).
He acknowledged what many of you and I had suspected-  that he was
instructed not to reply immediately to give the legal department a
chance to review it.  He also talked of the pressures of getting the
hotel to turn a profit since when it had been owned by the hospital it
had been losing $1.2 million per year.  I presume that the overbooking
was as a result of the need to become profitable and somebody blew it by
giving away my room.



Dear Dr. Meyer,

Your September 28, 1997 letter to Douglas Geoga has been referred to me
for a response. First, I want to express my sincerest apologies for this
unfortunate incident.  The safety and security of all our guests is of
the utmost importance and concern to me  and Hyatt. The situation you
described is unacceptable. You can be assured I have discussed the
incident thoroughly with my staff and we are taking steps to ensure that
no incident of this type happens again.

Hyatt has an extensive reservation policy that requires a hold to be
placed on an accessible room at the time a reservation is made by an
individual who requests an accessible room. Unfortunately, the hotel was
oversold and due to an error made by the front desk, your confirmed
reservation for an accessible room was not honored.  This was not in
accordance with our reservations policy. Your confirmed reservation for
an accessible room should have been honored. With respect to the van, we
have reviewed the safety mechanism to make sure that no further problems
occur.

Again, I apologize for this unfortunate occurrence. I appreciate you
taking the time to inform me about your unpleasant occurrence. As a
gesture of good will I would like to offer you a Two Night Stay at any
Hyatt. I am glad to hear that you were not injured seriously, however,
if you wish to submit any medical expenses arising out of this
occurrence, I will need to direct them to our insurance adjusters.
Please telephone me at my direct number (312) 243-xxxx, if you wish to
discuss the matter further.

I hope that you will permit us another opportunity to properly serve
you.

sincerely,

**********************

I am somewhat but not completely satisfied.  I may file an ADA complaint
basically to put the incident on record.  Any other suggestions would be
welcome.


Charlie

CHARLES T. MEYER, M.D.
Middleton, WI
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