FAQ

We partner with our clients to understand their travel preferences, goals and long-term travel vision.  Our goal is not to plan one-off vacations, but to have an ongoing relationship with our clients and gain more insights into our clients’ travel needs as we work together. 

We believe in mutually respectful relationships with our clients, built on honesty, trust and the sharing of knowledge. 

Learn other reasons why you should work with us.

No.  We work with a small group of clients who value exceptional services and luxury travel experiences and are able and willing to invest in these experiences. 

We want to make sure we are the right fit for our clients, and they are the right fit for us. We only take on clients where we feel confident we can add value and provide exceptional travel experiences.

For most of our services, we charge an industry standard planning fee.  Please see our Schedule of Fees for more information.  We are happy to discuss these fees in more detail with new clients in our initial Discover Session. 

We specialize in high-end travel across the world and tend to work with our highly vetted luxury travel partners delivering 4-star and 5-star luxury experiences.  Budget requirements can vary depending on countries visited, duration of the trip and what activities are planned. Before our initial Discover Session, we can only provide rough ballpark guidance on the investment for one of our uniquely tailored itineraries. 

Excluding airfare, most of our North American trips for 2 people start around $7,500 for a one-week trip.  International trips typically start around $10,000 per week for 2 people.  Luxury cruises start at roughly $5,000 per guest for a 7-8 day cruise.  We find these rough starting points help to set expectations with our clients and allow us to fully leverage our highly vetted luxury travel partners.

Whenever possible, we break out trip component costs in our proposals. This allows our clients to decide what components they feel are a good investment and where they might want us to investigate other options.

However, many of our luxury partners negotiate confidential wholesale rates with their individual suppliers and are contractually unable to break out costs for us when pricing a customized itinerary for our clients. They are more than happy to tweak the itinerary based on feedback and budget, but they cannot legally share the individual negotiated rates of tours, drivers, or in some cases even hotels, with us.

To ensure our clients receive the best value, we thoroughly vet our partners and only work with those who we know are committed to negotiating fair prices for our clients. 

We prefer to start thinking about our clients’ travel plans as early as we can, to ensure the best availability and pricing.  We are happy to discuss long-term plans and a multi-year travel wish list, to help our clients identify the optimal timing to start planning each of their trips.

For highly popular destinations and travel bucket list adventures, such as African safaris, the Galapagos Islands, and World Cruises, we recommend starting the planning process at least 12-18 months out, as capacity tends to be more limited and our luxury partners can quickly sell out once reservation windows are opened.  December and January holiday vacations also can require more advanced planning.  For other trips, we find 6-9 months in advance is usually sufficient to ensure availability of the best rooms, guides and other activities. 

The amount of time it takes to plan a trip from our initial Discover Session to confirming and booking of the last component depends on a variety of factors, including the complexity of the itinerary, number of countries visited, how many on-the-ground partners we are coordinating with across the globe, and how many itinerary iterations it takes to align on the perfect trip. 

Our Process page outlines rough guidelines on timing for each part of the planning process.

We always keep our clients updated on timing for our deliverables & next steps, and we reach out proactively if there is a delay so our clients aren’t left in the dark.  In return, we ask that after our initial proposal is delivered, our clients review and respond thoroughly as soon as they can in order to prevent changes in availability and pricing from impacting their desired travel itinerary.

Unfortunately, we are unable to assist with miles or points booking, however, we will always make sure our clients earning miles or points when we book their travel.  If utilizing miles or points is important for a component of an itinerary, we can discuss in the Discover Session.  Clients can use their miles or points to book those components and we will seamlessly integrate them into the overall itinerary.

Yes, we always recommend our clients purchase travel protection coverage to protect their investment in the event something unforeseen occurs that impacts travel prior to or during their vacation. 

We have a preferred list of travel insurance providers that we work with that have been vetted for their service levels and policy terms.  For clients that need more assistance or are not sure what insurance they might want, we also have access to Brownell’s dedicated and highly experienced insurance desk that can quote and provide different insurance options to meet our clients’ specific needs for their trips.

If clients decide not to purchase travel insurance, we ask them to sign a waiver acknowledging their decision to forgo insurance. 

We understand there is a lot of unpredictability in our clients’ lives.  We always advise our clients of the cancellation policies and important dates for their trips.  If changes need to be made to an itinerary, we can work with our partners to see what adjustments can be made, though change fees will likely apply and depending on the degree of adjustment, some cancellation & rebooking fees may also apply.

For trips that need to be fully cancelled, we offer our Stress-Free Cancellation service, where we will work with our partners to secure any applicable refunds for our clients.  Please see our Schedule of Fees page for more details. 

We work with our partners to try to get ahead of issues, so they don’t disrupt our clients’ travels.  However, if there are issues that crop up, our clients have immediate access to our on-the-ground partners.  If our partners cannot immediately address the issue, we will work with them to best support our clients and resolve any issues.

While we have access to rental apartments, houses and villas throughout the world, we do not work with public rental sites such as Airbnb and VRBO as these offerings cannot be properly verified. We only use verified, preferred partners for any accommodations for our clients.  Our partners personally visit every property that they offer, ensuring every property we book meets the luxury standards we require for our clients.  We can also offer many unique accommodations around the world, including castles, treehouses, private islands, and more, and these unique properties are not available through public rental sites.