http://www.hotelchatter.com/ Hotel Reviews, Hotel Ratings, Hotel Openings en-us Copyright 2008 - SFO Media 2012-02-14T22:14:21Z HotelChatter HotelChatter http://www.hotelchatter.com/images/hcwhite.jpg http://www.hotelchatter.com/tag/Corporate%20Retreats http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2009/2/4/154539/7441 <![CDATA[<p><img src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/6929/encorerates.jpg" class="top"> <p>Wells Fargo & Co., who received $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, was all set to send a sizable chunk of employees to Vegas for a corporate retreat that included a four-day employee sales conference. They'd booked 12 nights at <b><a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/hotel-reviews/Wynn+Las+Vegas/local/7">Wynn Las Vegas</a></b> and <b><a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/hotel-reviews/Encore+Las+Vegas/local/1397">Encore Las Vegas</a></b> (what? Was the <b><a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/hotel-reviews/Excalibur+Hotel+Casino/ian/135542">Excalibur</a></b> not good enough for them?) &#151; but, unsurprisingly, they announced that they'd canceled the whole trip Tuesday night. <p>After the whole St. Regis ultra-luxe <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/10/7/175757/204/hotels/AIG_Execs_Show_Us_How_to_Blow_500K_at_The_St_Regis">AIG outing disaster</a> last year, financially-struggling corporations have been coming under fire &#151; not unfairly &#151; for continuing to send employees on lavish and somewhat unnecessary retreats the way they used to do. Wells Fargo made a smart Jenna 2009-02-04T16:59:06-05:00 http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2008/10/7/175757/204 <![CDATA[<p><img align="right" src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/admin/spastregisaig.png" class="imgborder"> <p>Whoops! Looks like <i>someone</i> was a little careless with the spending! <p>We don't want to get too political here, so we'll try our best to deliver this news without any sort of...slant. <p>Days after the government spent $85 billion to prevent AIG from collapsing, the execs of the company took themselves on a special little retreat at the ritzy <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/hotel-reviews/St.+Regis+Monarch+Beach/local/773"><b>St. Regis Monarch Beach</b></a>. And they blew $500K. <p><a href="http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/10/aig-execs-went.html">USA Today</a> has a rundown on how AIG proved it possible to spend such an absurd amount of money at one hotel: <blockquote><p>Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., described what investigators found during a hearing this morning on Capitol Hill: <p>AIG spent $200,000 for hotel rooms, and almost $150,000 Jenna 2008-10-07T17:59:37-05:00 33.4823190 -117.71544 Search HotelChatter string http://www.hotelchatter.com/search/