Still smarting from their spanking for blowing $500,000 at a swanky resort after getting an $85 billion taxpayer bailout, AIG execs have cancelled a planned spa weekend at a posh California hotel.
The conference for AIG agents at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay next week was scrapped "after a re-evaluation of the costs under the new circumstances," AIG spokesman Joe Norton said Thursday.
Among other things, Norton cited "the need to repay the fed while still serving the needs of our policyholders."
AIG pulled the plug on plans for a weekend of pampering for a privileged few after the feds agreed to lend AIG another $37.8 billion to stay afloat - on top of the $85 billion the troubled insurer received just last month.
"I cannot fathom how in the same day - the very same day that AIG asked the government for another $37.8 billion loan, the company would even consider moving forward with plans to host another large conference at another large luxury resort," said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), a senior member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is probing the Wall Street crisis.
This means that AIG will have to figure out another way to "motivate and educate" 150 top agents who were expecting to stay in an ocean front hotel 30 miles south of San Francisco where the cheapest rooms go for $400 a night.
Among other things, the hotel features candle lit spas and Roman style mineral baths, two championship golf courses, and restaurants that have a tasting menu with wine that costs $167 per person.
Norton did not return an e-mail asking if AIG has cancelled any other expensive junkets for employees and top executives.
But an e-mail mistakenly sent to Bloomberg News revealed that AIG had the chutzpah to consider launching an ad campaign to justify the high-priced junkets.
That's "a really bad idea," AIG's public relations consultant George Sard wrote.
"To spend the taxpayer's money on an expensive ad campaign to apologize for how you used taxpayer money leaves you open to further attacks," Sard wrote to AIG flak Nicholas Ashooh.
Revelations on Tuesday that AIG execs blew $500,000 at the St. Regis resort in Monarch Beach, Calif. drew nationwide condemnation. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino called it "despicable."
Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, said in his debate with GOP rival, Sen. John McCain, that AIG should repay the U.S. Treasury for spending taxpayer money at the resort.