Luxury travel
You can book almost anything yourself. The question is not whether it is possible, it is what happens on the trip where something goes wrong, and whether you got the version of the hotel that the hotel gives to people it has been asked to look after.
For a two night city hotel, an advisor adds very little. Book it yourself. The value of an advisor scales with three things: how much the trip costs, how many moving parts it has, and how badly a failure would hurt.
A fourteen night trip across three countries with an eighty year old parent, a strict vegetarian diet and a non refundable safari deposit is where an advisor earns their place several times over. A weekend in Chicago is not.
Where we hold preferred partner status with a hotel, the same room booked through us typically carries a category upgrade on arrival, daily breakfast for two, a property credit and early check in or late check out, all subject to availability. The rate is usually identical to the one on the hotel's own site.
Hotels treat a booking that arrives with a name attached differently from one that arrives through an aggregator. Your preferences, anniversary, allergies and arrival time reach the general manager's morning list rather than a free text field nobody reads.
The most valuable thing an advisor says is often no. That famous property is tired, that island is a four hour transfer from the airport, that route needs a domestic connection that fails in the wet season. This is knowledge that reviews do not carry because reviewers only saw one property.
When a flight cancels, an aggregator gives you a queue. We give you a person who already has your itinerary open, knows which onward bookings are at risk, and can move them.
Private guiding is the difference between a great day and a wasted one. We book specific guides we have used, not whoever the agency rosters that morning.
Visas, transit rules, passport validity, connecting airline baggage agreements, dietary briefings, connecting rooms, car seats. Someone has to do this work. The only question is whether it is you, at eleven at night, after your actual job.
Two ways, and you should ask any advisor which applies.
Commission. Hotels, cruise lines, tour operators and some airlines pay a commission on bookings made through the trade. This is built into the published rate whether or not you use an advisor, which is why an advisor booked rate is usually the same as the direct rate rather than higher.
Planning fees. For complex itineraries with substantial research, custom routing and multiple non commissionable elements, a planning fee covers the design work. Where we charge one, it is agreed in writing before we start and is disclosed up front, not discovered later.
A fair question to ask
Ask any advisor whether they are being paid more to recommend one property over another. Ours is a simple answer: we will tell you when a recommendation carries a higher commission, and we will tell you when we are recommending something that pays us nothing because it is the right answer.
We would rather tell you this than take a booking we add nothing to.
Tell us where you are thinking of going, when, who is coming and what the trip is for. If we are the right fit we will say so, and if you would be better off booking it yourself we will say that instead.
