A $3000/night hotel room? Really? What is wrong with that picture?

[Raven]

Not pronouncing the man guilty or innocent but why does this unsettle me just a wee bit? The man in charge of solving the financial crisis of any number of countries...$3000 a night?

[Emillereid]

1. I read that he actually paid $800.

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/05/16/strauss-kahn-goes-from-suite-to-cell/

800 bucks is still a lot to me.

[Art_from_Ark]

3. It's a lot to me, too

But even the slimiest hotel room in Manhattan can go for more than $100 a night.

[SoCalDem]

15. Hotel rates are outrageous..especially for suites..

When we go to Vegas, I get a suite comped, but I would NEVER EVER pay what the rate is.. If I had to pay, I would be at Motel 6..

I bring groups to Vegas, so the hotel we stay at "likes" me..the suite they comp us with has 2000 sq ft.. (bigger than our house)

[Prometheus Bound]

2. At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

So one night's hotel for him is almost a year's food for 80% of humanity.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

[JVS]

4. Far be it from me to defend the rich and powerful, but there could be legitimate reasons for it.

My usual custom is to stay at motels that cost from $29.95 to $40. But there have been times where I've been attending conferences and paid $80-120 because I needed features like wireless internet, proximity to the conference site, and because at a higher price you often weed out the clientele who are looking for a place to drink and screw loudly through the night. On one occasion I even paid $280 for a room adjoining an airport because I had all my belongings (mostly, clothes, papers, and books back in the day when you could check 3 items per ticket) from 2 years of living in another country and I didn't want to miss a $1000 flight in the morning because I was trying to schlep everything from a cheaper place to the airport.

For $3,000 this guy was renting a penthouse suite. Why? Well, first was probably that he needed a suite instead of a room. Only very informal business meetings can be conducted in a hotel room with people sitting on a couple chairs next to the bed. So the beginning of having a suite is likely when you need to be able to host meetings and/or you need space that functions like an office away from your home office. But a penthouse suite is more than even that. This is more like having an entire residence for your temporary use. This would be justified if his job included hosting large groups of people who need to meet each other for further work. While it might be cheaper to rent a home somewhere, the task of finding a home to rent, and then organizing such an event in an unfamiliar city is a bit much, so the hotel is a more expensive but easier way to get things together.

[starroute]

5. But at least one article said he wasn't in the US on business

It was about the question of whether he could claim diplomatic immunity, and it explained that he couldn't because he was not here in an official capacity.

I can't swear it was correct, though. Maybe being the head of IMF simply doesn't give you diplomatic status the way being a representative of a foreign power does.

But I wouldn't want to jump to the conclusion that he really needed that penthouse suite, as opposed to merely being used to traveling in style.

[JVS]

8. He probably has a security detail.

Which would mean that a suite is likely the norm.

[JDPriestly]

11. He was here visiting his daughter at Columbia for one thing.

That's what I read. He is a very, very wealthy man.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

14. He lives D.C. too, and diplomatic immunity is something badly misunderstood in and by the US

Very few countries or agencies with actually try claim diplomatic immunity in circumstances where a figure is accused of a serious crime, that is something of an American phenomenon where we claim diplomatic immunity for all sorts of people who have no real treaty claim to far reaching diplomatic immunity.

[suffragette]

6. IMF is saying he paid $525

http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/french-news/525-hotel-bill-out-of-strauss-kahn-s-pocket-imf_149375.html

$525 hotel bill out of Strauss-Kahn's pocket: IMF

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was on a private trip and paid the $525-per-night room bill at a New York hotel out of his own pocket during his now-infamous stay, the institution said Monday.
"My understanding is that the rate of the room was $525, and that it was a private trip paid by the managing director," spokesman William Murray of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund told AFP.

[MadHound]

7. Just the typical lifestyle of the wealthy and power elite,

Whatever political stripe they are.

[winstars]

9. They are able to charge rates like...

that because virtually all guests at that level are not paying the bill themselves, it's expense account stuff; someone else is paying. The occasional guest who is paying out of their own pocket is mega-rich and does not care about the price. The Presidential (or Vice Presidential) suites at hotels like the Four Seasons or Ritz Carltons can be up to $7000-$8000 per night. The Soffitel Hotel in Times Square, some would say, he was slumming it!!! That room was probably a living room and master bedroom, maybe a second small bedroom. It ain't The Plaza, when I saw which hotel it was it seemed even more creepy, a throwback to Time Square before Disney... Just adding some info for all here... I have stayed in a million hotels, large and small and the idea of what he did is sooooooo nuts. WTF

[JDPriestly]

12. I have read that he paid for the room out of his personal money.

[JDPriestly]

10. Apparently that number is a huge exaggeration.

It wasn't a cheap room, but that is an exaggeration.

His wife is quite wealthy as is he. That's why he is in charge of solving the financial crisis-- because he is an expert on handling money. He got that way by having a lot of it, I suppose. (Just guessing about this.)

[99th_Monkey]

13. If strauss-kahn could "afford" $3000 hotel suite, then why not also shell out $1000 for a hooker?

... instead of molesting and raping a freaking hotel maid?

It kinda doesn't make sense when I think about it.

unless maybe he was on crack or something?

[kentuck]

16. Maybe he had ordered a hooker?

And thought she was the one he ordered?? It doesn't make sense when he could have bought any services that he wanted.

[jberryhill]

17. That is the rack rate

The weird thing about being wealthy is that you get a lot of stuff for free or at a discount.

Some states have hotel laws which require them to post the room rate (you'll sometimes see this on a little sign on the back of the door). In those situations, the hotel cannot charge more than that number. So, they pick a really high number, and charge a "discount" off of that rate.

Given this guy's standing relationship with the hotel chain, it is unlikely he was paying the rack rate.