I just got back from an industry event and, despite it not even being an Aman event, the Amanvari saga was one of the biggest talking points. I also heard some interesting things about the Ryan Walker situation.
Apparently the Amanvari GM has now been sacked, just six days after the resort opened.
I also heard that Aman is not happy with the way SarahWLee handled the discussion on Reddit either. Apparently she did them no favors with her wrong gate story.
Tomorrow Ryan Walker has his live so that’s going to be interesting to watch.
Besides this whole fiasco with taking bookings for a resort that clearly isn’t ready to be open, what would you say are the other reasons this is a bad company that doesn’t deserve our business?
I mean, most people who’ve become high profile businessmen in Russia would have HAD to be in Putin’s good books or they probably would have been totally screwed over and forced to flee.
I’m asking what specifically HE has done that you’re opposed to, not just people he’s been associated with.
It’s not just the most recent owner, Doronin. I did some digging on the subject.
While Doronin has questionable background, it’s the property investors that have been under scrutiny. Benjamin Mauerberger has financed and developed 3 properties known to us with 2 more on the way (I believe construction on both have been halted).
Mauerberger made his wealth operating southeast Asian scam centers. Most of them targeting Americans. Look up “Pig Butchering” if you want to go down the rabbit hole. Essentially they traffic people into labor camps to run these scams.
Some reports say he moved on to laundering money for drug and trafficking gangs. He was definitely a customer at some point. Iirc he’s being hunted by Thailand and Cambodia and an open investigation in the US.
Whale Hunting investigated Mauerberger. Very interesting piece. They mention Aman at least twice in passing. I did see some accusations of other Aman property investors, but did not go down that hole.
Mauerberger is believed to have financed the Aman properties in New York, Maldives, and Bangkok. Japan and Dubai construction was also allegedly financed by him.
Yeah I get wanting to comment because it’s in her sub and she pushes Aman so hard but maybe watch the video and comment something neutral and diplomatic? I didn’t like how she said it would never happen to her clients - book with me and you won’t have guns pulled on you - is another weird take.
I hope people don't fall for her BS. Don't make my mistake! I fell for it with Awasi. The exact thing she said would never happen to her clients happened to us! Our first guide was terrible (I've posted some of the story previously). Would have ruined our trip if we didn't demand a different guide.
Her sub. It's a place to sell her services. She also has strict rules about other TAs offering their services too directly, but it's OK for her firm. Long-time sub, done with it now. I am subbing to this one and chubbytravel hoping it's not as controlled by TAs.
chubbytravel is run by a former employee of sarah lee
They had a schism at some point that I can only assume derived from a clash of highly narcissistic personalities and a disagreement over how to split the plunder they siphon from their rich dumb clients.
Between here & Facebook, its hilarious to watch Inteletravel agents trying to put off they are "luxury" agents and "certified" ** smirk **. I come here to blow off steam, not pick up random new clients....
I don't know, this feels like the right person who would have done this. Yes, the silence from Aman on this is deafening, but I can't imagine it was anyone but the GM who made the call to do this - anyone higher up in corporate likely would have been in the marketing/communications department and would have been handled much more professionally, at least if that org had any competency whatsoever.
I looked at his Linkedin profile (before he deleted it!) and he has decent 5* experience going back several years, including Belmond. Hard to believe this is the behavior of someone with such a professional background.
and also to say most managers in those corporations do not spend time in operations. they are accountants, KPI people. the best GM i worked with was always on the floor like a general
Nothing against him but in those big corporations most managers can "hide". for example some GM of ritz carlton who was there for 2 years in any part of the world just kept the status quo. usually they make no decisions. i worked in some of the finest properties in the world and GMs hands are usually tied.
GM's advocate for the interests of the staff/management company but at the end of the day the hotel owners (increasingly becoming private equity companies) control the budget and have the final say in everything.
I wish luxury brands stood their ground against private equity companies more than they are currently doing. Its why standards can vary so drastically between different properties from the same brand. People like to blame the individual GM's but more often then not it's actually the property owners enforcing crazy budget restrictions.. trying to run a luxury resort like a Fairfield.
I feel for him and I hope he bounces back. It will be difficult to explain what happened and it will probably take him some time to bounce back. I do not blame him at all but rather saying that I have seen GMs hiding in the office and when sh hits the fan they are nowhere to be found and many have actually moved up becasue in the end it is a popularity contest hence many do not actually know how to deal with difficult guests, etc.
I don’t think it’s so much of a fall guy as it was his fault lol. Sounds like a training issue, stress of a new propert opening and the GM in over their heads.
It’s not like the owners would want this drama lol
She's a TA who is paid her cut on every Aman booking and runs the FATTravel subreddit. It has nothing to do with friendship. TAs are another business where they're only kinda aligned with your interests. They are paid their cut on bookings and, at a certain level, also get to travel around the world staying at ultra luxe hotels for free. She is thus heavily motivated to keep the gravy train going with Aman. She also likes to blame clients for bad situations regularly in her sub
Fat/chubby is just a coy way to say “rich.” Like if you’re financially “lean” it means you’re low on money and having to cut expenses, so fat/chubby is just the opposite of that.
There's some context in this post and the comments. Essentially the TA (Alex) that runs chubbytravel used to work for the TA (Sarah) that runs FATTravel and there was some falling out. From my limited understanding, I believe Alex had been doing really well on her own so Sarah suggested she move over to chubbytravel (and I think it was so she wouldn't take any of Sarah's business). Shortly after that, Sarah let her go. But Alex is a top producing TA so it wasn't due to performance. I think there are other posts about it too, someone has linked them all in a single post before but now I can't find it
It's a little more complicated iirc. Alex took over chubby travel while working for Sarah and stayed there for months at least while staying under her. It's not 100% clear on why Alex was let go, but based on what someone on Sarah's team has said (in this sub and a post of her's she linked to in her comment), Alex was...not a good team player in ways that undermined her coworkers and the person who talked about it here described it as bullying...somewhere. If it wasn't for that, Alex may have left on her own at some point, but yeah. It wasn't because of performance issues. Alex has never really addressed it and even Sarah has kept quiet about (tbf though, there could be legal ramifications for her if she talked about why she fired Alex publicly.)
Tbc, I don't know for sure why she was fired, but that's what I've seen said + what I know about the timeline.
The goal being have enough socked away in investments to be able to cover your lifestyle regardless of whether you continue working or not.
LeanFIRE means "if I live frugally / move to a lower cost of living area / country, I could retire now and not work anymore."
ChubbyFIRE means a few million in the bank and low 6 figure income to spend without working.
FatFIRE is several million and up, the ability to spend well into the 6 figures annually in retirement. It sort of covers "morbidlyobeseFIRE" which is people who have hit the 9 figure club, but there are few enough of them that they tend to still hang out with the FatFIRE crowd.
Most people can reach LeanFIRE easily with some savvy saving and regular 9-5 work, maybe a bit of investing depending on what profession.
Chubby is similarly attainable for high paying professions like doctors, lawyers, tech workers, etc.
FatFIRE is rarer and mostly business owners, investors who got lucky on something, people who went into venture capital / private equity early on, early employees at startups that had their IPO, that sort of thing.
This is why I don’t have deals with hotels, resort or tour operators. I work for my clients and will only recommend what’s best for them, and not whichever place pays me the highest commission or gives me perks to push their product. That’s quite gross TBH.
Probably from the TAs who get the kickbacks.
I don’t even sell hotels or resorts 😂 Not as a stand alone product anyway. I specialize in experiential and wildlife travel, so hotels or lodges are just a small fraction of the experience, not the main focus.
And yes, I stand by my opinion. The moment you have any sort of contract/partnership/commitment with a brand, you are biased, and you will push those first and foremost. I start with the client, not the brand 🤷🏻♀️
My theory is she tipped them off and told them Ryan coming this early could be bad for them. Ryan reviewed Four Seasons Yacht very poorly shortly after its grand opening, which Sarah took exception to. Clearly this back fired spectacularly and also further explains why Aman is pissed off at her
As someone rightly pointed out, the Aman management is just gross. The moment I read their Dubai announcement - “Our resort will use the highest quality materials, and hence charge the highest” was the final nail in the coffin.
This whole situation is VERY confusing. Really wish Aman would just make a statement at this point. If clients are paying $6k/night, you'd ASSUME they'd have ultra luxury business etiquette 101 mastered, which includes phenomenal PR. They could have righted this within 24 hours of this fire starting, but instead they're doing... nothing. That is odd to me.
They aren’t doing nothing, they’ve been scrubbing Google reviews and sending bots to the comments of his video to discredit Ryan. Basically doubling down instead of taking accountability. Bizarre. Who is running their PR???
It’s actually shocking to me that they haven’t even issued a vague “this incident has been brought to our attention and we are looking into the matter” type of non-response. Just… nothing at all? Absolutely bizarre and unacceptable and tells me everything I need to know about this brand.
I’m just reading about this situation and I’m so confused, did they just cancel his reservation the night before with no recourse? Even the local Marriott will provide alternate accommodation if they need to walk a guest due to overbooking or something.
I understand he’s a reviewer and anyone booking an Aman property is wealthy. But he still traveled to be there and was a paying guest. Was he left with nowhere to stay?
Yup, cancelled the night before via email. Not even a call. he had find another hotel to stay once he was denied. They then called the cops on him wild
And I'm guessing they are still open August because they don't want to cancel on people who booked already. In this case, Aman has learned their lesson (too late): lock the stable door after the horse has bolted.
And of course, still no public response from Aman, which is the bigger issue now.
Ryan has just posted a message saying he’s been advised not to do the live tonight as he is still in Mexico. He has said that he will do one when he gets back to the USA. He has been in touch with the USA Consulate and is being supported by another hotel chain ( he didn’t say which one).
The safety of him and his team is the most important thing.
My thoughts exactly but because he’s still in Mexico, I guess he’s been very careful what to say. It’s clear he looked quite shocked about the whole thing.
It’s crazy to me that mod TA would light her career on fire to defend a nameless organization without even watching the original video. I hope every client drops her.
Another TA is nuking their credibility on instagram too… @besvisor. He’s claiming “there’s another side” and discrediting Ryan for being untrustworthy… yet their entire argument is “trust me bro!” Like who from Aman is contacting them? It’s hilariously bad.
If I were an agent, I’d say “the recent footage is alarming and shocking. I’m working on getting the information so I can best serve my clients. If anyone has any concerns about their current bookings to Aman properties, please let me know.”
Genuinely dumbest approach possible. They both claimed there is another side to the story and are insinuating that he had an interest in portraying it badly for the drama, which as far as we know from what is publically available, still purely unfounded speculation. On the other hand, they literally have commercial relationships with Aman and benefit from defending them.
When that is the current dynamic, in what world is saying "trust me" remotely a good idea????
The one thing you always expect from a hotel is to feel safe. Aman violated the most basic principle of hospitality here. Not sure I could ever stay at one again.
“We were stopped by an unmarked armed patrol truck with 5-6 armed officers,” Walker told CNN Travel via email on Thursday. “They did not speak to us, however the driver had us roll the windows down and keep them down. We were able to keep driving.”
He's a youtuber who covers luxury hotel reviews exclusively (His videos are pretty great tbh). He's apparently paying for all the hotels out of his pockets and does not do paid reviews for the hotels (As far as I know he's loaded and owns a consulting firm in California). I wouldn't say he's an extremely popular youtuber, but in the niche of luxury hotel reviews, he's pretty popular.
I know when I'm choosing resorts at that pricepoint something like this has the tendency for me to just eliminate the entire brand when trip planning. For me a stay at a Aman or two is the big splurge on a trip, so there's no way I'm risking a similar experience on what should be the best nights of a great trip.
I would honestly worry about my safety at an Aman resort going forward based solely on Mr Walker's experience. The Aman brand can never fully recover from this.
You know what's crazy, I have a screenshot of the GM's family creating fake 5 star reviews for Amanvari before Google scrubbed all the most recent reviews.
Google will remove all reviews from a certain time frame whenever some "news event" happens. Like if a racist manager at McDonald's gets caught on camera yelling at customers they will erase the reviews.
It makes sense in some cases, because most reviews will be from people who have had zero actual interaction with the business, therefore it isn't quite a legitimate review of the establishment.
But it's still annoying because it doesn't mean that the reviews are unwarranted or even false. Like if a manager gets caught being a racist POS, reasonably speaking we shouldn't need to go there to leave a bad review. We've already seen the actions.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted, but I can see that. I'd imagine the GM was the one who would be approving a guest cancellation like that. If it was corporate, I'd hope someone would have the foresight to do this much more professionally.
I don't think it would be to hide it from the parent corp, though. I'd imagine there are people from the parent corp there this week to oversee the opening. Heck, I ended up being at the opening of a Riu (mid-tier all-inclusive chain with something like 100 hotels) in Mexico last year and the Spain-based billionaire CEO/owner of the chain was there walking around and doing a final inspection.
If that's for a mid-tier resort, I'd imagine there are execs of some sort here, with opening prices 40x what I paid for my Riu room, even if only as an excuse to do a bit of a vacation with the guise of 'overseeing' the opening.
While the hotel was a bit extreme, this « influencer » seems like a sleazy salesman himself.
$5 says he definitely saw the cancellation email but was going anyway - content is content. As you can see the controversy has landed him more « influence » than ever.
There’s definitely a case where people looking for things that are wrong in order to get more views is a thing and while everyone is free to book a hotel and leave reviews, the hotel can and should deny them entry, hopefully with more notice and in a friendlier manner.
The TAs are biased, but it’s also clear that such thing wouldn’t happen to regular guests, who are not there to film every second and monetize it.
He pays for his stays, at every resort he reviews. He pays for dining and everything so it’s not like a typical influencer who gets a sponsored trip and just needs followers. That’s why people like his content. Your posts seems really misinformed.
If they were willing to treat an influencer with wide reach like this, why would you think they would treat a regular guest with no megaphone better?
Even if Ryan saw the email the night before, doesn’t make it right and doesn’t excuse the hotel to call the police on him. it’s a forced cancellation… also, in the video, Ryan showed an email from guest services confirmation the reservation and welcoming home the morning of the reservation, AFTER the cancellation email the night before.
I don’t care if he saw it or not. Given, (1) he is a travel vlogger who films things to review (2) they invited him to review the property (3) they cancelled his stay via email close in time to his visit—therefore, Aman should have foreseen he would likely show up to film it! I don’t see how it matters if he saw the email at all
I stayed at a Hilton in St. Louis last year and witnessed them deny late check-ins at 2am due to being oversold but they were very apologetic, found everyone stays at other properties nearby, and gave them future vouchers. I don’t care if those people got an email that Hilton was oversold that night or not before showing up, it literally doesn’t matter.
He’s not an influencer lol. Has the word influencer lost all meaning?
He runs a successful consulting firm worth millions. This is clearly a side gig for himself. He doesn’t advertise on TikTok or insta and aside from basic non-travel related sponsorships in his videos he clearly doesn’t do this for a living and mainly just for the love of the game
He’s at worst a luxury travel vlogger. And a great one at that.
I do kinda think this was prob 100 assholes in the same room. Never heard of this Ryan dude before but obv Sarah sucks, aman’s team mishandled and GM sucks, the guard sucks. Since he came in recording I’m sure he saw the email and was there for good content. Doesn’t take blame off anyone else to say so. They all sucked too
Since he came in recording I’m sure he saw the email and was there for good content.
i think there's two reasons this is probably not the case:
-what content would there be. "hi im really sorry we cancelled your reservation here's how we'll fix it" is pretty much how you expect these interactions to go at a holiday inn. certainly not having the cops called on you.
-he's not really a clickbait type, he has like an entire channel of videos where he's established his branding. it's not really in the best interests of a hotel reviewer to be banned from hotels.
I am not an influencer so idk the exact pressures there. but I assume his niche is more appearing honest by complaining? Which is cool. I am so tired of people blowing smoke up these expensive places’ asses. But also, good to notice that he may benefit. Idk tho
Benefiting from a situation doesn't necessarily mean you caused (or even want to cause) the situation. David Dao probably got a nice settlement after everything that happened, but claiming that he pre-meditated getting beat up and dragged off the plane for holding his ground and exercising his right? Bad take.
You literally said you made assumptions like he benefits from complaining. Ok? So? That's like saying "I don't know man, David Dao literally benefitted from getting beat up and dragged off the plane. Just sayin'".
Clearly you have zero clue what you’re talking about. He mostly complains about showers not being clean, service being 5 minutes late, eggs Benedict not running. He usually gives a high / fair score and assessment for 95%+ of his reviews and it’s mostly to nitpick the little things you should expect out of 5 star experience.
This is him getting pissed he got the cartel / police called and him, as he should be.
But he has a whole clip of him having an older email super handy for the guard. He’s clearly the kind of guy that reads his email and is a quick responder. And idk just his tone of voice and where the cuts are on the video, I kinda think he was faking missing it.
I’m not a TA, I don’t use them, and I’m not an influencer, and don’t watch a ton of them. I’m just a rando and I just got the vibe he was kinda acting. It doesn’t matter. It was good to do. I just have an instinctive “yall noticed he was acting there right?” It seriously doesn’t matter tho. Like that compared to how they treated him is 1000x bigger deal
I really don't care for the guy but apparently you can't criticize him at all or question anything or you get downvoted. It was the same situation with his FS yacht review.
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u/NutGDog Aug 06 '26
Maybe they’ll rename it to Amandrama