What a travel concierge actually does

People sometimes ask why they would use us when they can book a hotel in four clicks. It is a fair question and the answer is not that we are faster. It is that the four clicks are the start of the work, not the end of it.

Before you book

When an enquiry arrives, someone on the team reads it. Not a system, a person, who has usually stayed in the property or spoken with its general manager in the last year. If the dates are wrong for the destination, we say so. If a different room category is a better fit for the same money, we say that too. Then we contact the hotel directly, confirm the rate, and ask for what we can: an upgrade, breakfast, a credit, a specific room number if it matters.

Between booking and arrival

We build the rest of the trip around the hotel. Flights, the transfer timed to your actual landing, a table at the restaurant you read about, a driver for the day trip. All of it goes into one itinerary and, if you want, one invoice. Two weeks before you travel, we reconfirm everything with every supplier. Things break in travel; we find out before you do.

When you are there

The hotel knows who you are and why you are travelling. If something is wrong, you call us, not a front desk, and we deal with it. We have moved guests between rooms at midnight, rerouted a family around a cancelled flight from a different continent, and found a paediatrician in Bali on a Sunday.

What it costs

Nothing, in most cases. Hotels pay us a commission for the booking, the same way they pay any agency, and the rate you receive is the hotel's own rate, not a marked up one. Where a fee applies, for complex itineraries or private aviation, we tell you before we start.