tl;dr Guest left keys with attached vial of vital meds in room. Called within 2 hours and paid for express return. Housekeeper opened vial (why?) and manager called police, who came to the property and immediately determined that meds were simply medications. Hyatt then gave us a huge runaround, retained the keys for days, had us calling the police and worrying about having to return to be drug tested, and never returned the meds or the vial.

Details:

On Monday, June 19, 2017, we stayed at the Hyatt Place Louisville East in Louisville, KY en route to a satellite office.

The next morning (Tuesday June 20) we checked out. We left our room in an orderly condition; we left a nice tip for housekeeping; our bill was paid in full.

Two hours up the road my husband realized he'd left behind his keys -- including our rental car keys, his office and work apartment keys, and an attached pill container of medicine that's important to his health. I called Hyatt Place and their response was exemplary. They called us back quickly to say that the housekeeper had found the keys, and promised to immediately express mail them to us at our destination. They took our credit card number to pay for the express mailing costs. We sent an email with all information necessary to have the keys returned as instructed, and then we sent a follow-up email after a couple of days. There was no response to either email.

On Friday, June 23 we still hadn't received the keys. I called the hotel, and much to our shock, the manager called me back to say that our keys had been turned over to the police.

Apparently the housekeeper had taken it upon herself to search our belongings - the keys - for her own reasons, and decided that the contents of the attached pill container were somehow suspicious. Her story was that the keys "fell" and a powder came out, which is simply not true. The pill container was bought at Walgreens and is commonly used by people with heart conditions, serious pain issues, etc. for vital medication. It's completely sealed with a rubber seal. Who wants a nitroglycerin tab dropping where a child could find it?

The manager rather snottily told me that he had verified that the keys were currently in the custody of the "JTown police" and we needed to call them to find out how we could get them back. I was pretty staggered by his story, in part because the housekeeping had so clearly violated our privacy and in part because the "powder" was so obviously not anything suspicious.

However, I called the police and after a lengthy hold was told that I'd have to speak to the officer who'd taken the call and who was not in that day. If I called back after three o' clock, I MIGHT be able to get the story from his sargeant. This left us in a state of great anxiety. Neither of us had any clue what police procedures might be. We did not know whether we'd have to drive nine hours back to Louisville to be drug tested, whether we'd somehow end up with a police record, or how long any testing was going to take. And we were going to need to turn the rental car in.

Meanwhile, we were still locked out of everything except the rental car, which I had the duplicate key for.

I was so livid that I called Hyatt's corporate office. The first person I spoke to was horrified. So were the second and third. None could do anything because it was going to be up to the police.

After three more calls to the "JTown" police, I was finally told in no uncertain terms that the police had immediately determined that this was NOT a police matter, never took custody of the keys, and the hotel had agreed that they would return the keys to us. Which they did NOT even attempt to do.

Despite having our phone number, address, email address, credit card info, etc., they never contacted us until prompted by Corporate on the Friday. Apparently one of those people called the hotel itself and spoke to the manager. He called and left a message for me, which unfortunately I somehow missed while engaged in lengthy converstations and holds with both Corporate and the police.
The message left by the manager simply apologized for "any confusion" and asked for our address (which they already had).

When I picked up this message on Saturday, the manager I spoke to said that the keys would immediately be expedited to me and we'd receive tracking info by email. Nope. Still hadn't had it on Monday, when we called Corporate again, who called the hotel again. Finally on Tuesday we received the keys - without the medication, which had been taken off the key ring. No note, no explanation, no apolgy of any kind, and, inexcusably, my husband is still without his medication which cannot easily be replaced.

I wouldn't expect this kind of treatment from a broken-down one-star motel, much less a Hyatt.


Update 08/04/17

Thus far the responses from Hyatt have been:

"...Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns regarding your stay at Hyatt Place Louisville-East. Your concerns are very important to us and due to the nature of the experience you have described, we feel it is important to involve the executive management of the hotel for review and follow up.

We appreciate your patience while this matter is fully investigated."

And:...We are unable to honor your request. Please contact the Jeffersontown Police Department for further assistance in retrieving the vile (sic) in question..."

This is an unbelievably poor response. We've already spent hours on the phone trying to contact the police and were told that the police did not have possession of our property. We've never received any explanation of how or why the keys were turned in or why the hotel didn't forward the keys as promised to both us and to the police. We've never received any kind of apology or acknowledgement from the hotel itself, and a very scant one from Hyatt along the lines of "sorry for the inconvenience."

On my initial call to the corporate office, the lady I spoke to said she'd frequently left things in Hyatts and they'd always been sent on quickly. Indeed, my daughter had a camera forwarded from a cheap hotel in ICELAND faster and with less trouble. Of course guests should check hotels thoroughly before checking out - and believe me, we bitterly regret missing those keys. But guests routinely DO leave things and hotels routinely DO forward them with no fuss.

It's amazing to me that the Hyatt hotel itself turned a shining customer service moment into a disaster, and it's even more amazing to me that Hyatt corporate isn't interested.

The staff at Hyatt had absolutely no right to open my husband's medication container. They tried to cover this up by claiming it came open. In the five years he's used this type of container, it's never come open. They did not return it and did not return his medication.

Telling us we need to call the police was completely absurd given that the police not only didn't have the keys, they NEVER had the keys. We wasted an inordinate amount of time on this.

Update 8/1/26: I'm still livid about this; I still tell the story; people still can't believe that the hotel first investigated the meds and then didn't return them. As far as I'm concerned, the matter is still outstanding and Hyatt still needs to respond properly.

What I want to resolve this:

1. Compensation: Inconvenience of being without keys and essential medicine for extended period
350

2.
Recovery of Losses: Replacement of medicine
79

3.
Recovery of Losses: Replacement of pill container
8

4.
Pay me for my time: Three hours of dealing with Hyatt and the JTown police
300

5.
Filing costs
25

Total: $762