Close User Name Password
Login Register
Hotel stories straight to your inbox:

Tags: / / /

AIG Execs Show Us How to Blow 500K at The St. Regis

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: One Monarch Beach Resort [map], Monarch Beach, CA, United States, 92629
October 7, 2008 at 5:59 PM | by Jenna | 4 Comments

Whoops! Looks like someone was a little careless with the spending!

We don't want to get too political here, so we'll try our best to deliver this news without any sort of...slant.

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 St. Regis Monarch Beach. And they blew $500K.

USA Today has a rundown on how AIG proved it possible to spend such an absurd amount of money at one hotel:

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., described what investigators found during a hearing this morning on Capitol Hill:

AIG spent $200,000 for hotel rooms, and almost $150,000 for catered banquets. AIG spent -- listen to this one -- $23,000 at the hotel spa and another $1,400 at the salon. They were getting their manicures, their facials, their pedicures and their massages while the American people were -- were footing the bill.

...And they spent another $10,000 for -- I don't know what this is -- leisure dining.

...Another member of the panel explained that "leisure dining" means they drank at a bar.

Well, folks: now you know. And we're guessing it's not so hard to run up a $23K bill at the spa with $350 treatments like the Mediterranean Harmony Massage, which involves two therapists doing double duty on your bod and ends with a fig-and-cassis backrub. Musta been nice.

4 Comments

Post a Comment

Return to » AIG Execs Show Us How to Blow 500K at The St. Regis

  1. bangerang

    HotelChatter Member

    and...

    for that kinda money there had to have been several happy endings, right?
    October 7, 2008 at 6:05 PM
    #Permalink

  1. jorgeE

    HotelChatter Member

    Bastards...! Hang them in the Main Square.....!!

    ....that's why my children ..., because of crooks like these  executives that this country is in this dire situation; while we are struggling to make ends meet, suffering lay-offs, congress passing a $700 Billion bail out ( and that  will not be enough)!!

     think their names should be made public for the nation to get to know them..!!!!
    IT'S SHAMELESS!!!

    October 7, 2008 at 7:40 PM
    #Permalink

  1. abigailmschilling

    HotelChatter Member

    ooof

    i hate hearing about stuff like that.
    October 7, 2008 at 9:43 PM
    #Permalink

  1. 2surly

    HotelChatter Member

    your tax dollars at work!

    At least it wasn't my property...Once I got past my tax payer rage, I started to look at this from the group's standpoint (in the interest of full disclosure, I do work in group sales for a high-end resort so programs like this are my bread and butter). It could be that, depending on the cancellation policy's in the contract, the group would have had to forfeit the same or close to the same amount of money in cancellation penalties. A lot of times a company may want to cancel a group for any number of reasons, but will ultimately operate the program (many times with far fewer attendees)because it would have cost them the same to cancel the program.

    That being said, they absolutely should have canceled the program. Why? Remember how the CEO of Tyco used $1M of the company's money for his wife's birthday party in Sardinia and how all of those photos from said party came out in the press? You don't operate a program like this if you've just been bailed out by the government, even if the group's already paid for, because it's a PR nightmare.

    October 9, 2008 at 12:26 PM
    #Permalink

Return to » AIG Execs Show Us How to Blow 500K at The St. Regis

Leave a Comment

Not yet a member? Click here to become a member.

Already a member? Log in below:

Comment with your Facebook account.