Luxury hotel advisor
I am a luxury travel advisor with Fora. Tell me where you want to go and I will take care of the hotel: the right room, the best rate, and exclusive perks.
Never a markup. Send me a screenshot of a lower rate and I will take it to the hotel to match.
A free room upgrade, free daily breakfast, a welcome amenity, and early check in with late checkout.
There is no fee, no retainer and no markup. The hotel pays my commission.
Where, roughly when, and what it is for. A paragraph is plenty. You do not need to have picked a hotel.
With opinions attached, not a list of links. What each one is good at, what it is not, and which program benefits apply to each.
I handle the reservation and apply every benefit the property participates in. You pay the hotel directly at check out.
Reservations, a room that is not what was promised, a flight that falls apart. You have someone to contact.
Every major luxury hotel group runs an invitation only program for travel advisors. Membership comes with negotiated rates and a package of amenities the hotel commits to honor for that advisor’s clients. Through Fora I am a member of those programs.
When you send me a hotel, the first thing I do is work out which programs cover it and which one gets you the most. That comparison is the actual work.
Applied at check in, subject to availability on the day.
For two, every morning of the stay.
Set by the property. Often a drink, a tasting plate, or something local.
Where the house can accommodate it. Often the most useful one.
The package varies by property. I will tell you exactly what applies to your booking before you commit rather than after.
Hotels are where I can do the most for you, so that is where I put my time. Send me your flights anyway and I will look at the routing before you book. A connection that lands at the wrong hour can quietly cost you the first day of a trip, and that is an easy thing to catch.
Trips where the room matters more than the itinerary, and where being flagged as a couple celebrating something changes how you are treated.
Eight people, four rooms, one person trying to coordinate it from a group chat. This is the case where an advisor saves the most time.
Where you are staying is a function of where you want to eat. Reservations are part of the booking, not an afterthought.
Knowing which properties are genuinely comfortable and which are merely advertising it, and asking the questions you should not have to ask yourself.
Calistoga, California
Spread-out studios with private patios at the north end of Napa Valley, where the traffic finally thins. The draw is Spa Solage and its geothermal mud treatments, plus a bathhouse circuit of thermal pools that runs from cold to deeply warm. Solbar holds a Michelin star, there are bicycles for everyone, and the whole place stays deliberately low-key. Calistoga itself is a two-minute ride away and still behaves like a small town.
Lanai, Hawaii
Above Hulopoe Bay on an island with barely any paved road, which is the whole point. Rooms are large and face the water, spa treatments happen in open-air hale, and Nobu is downstairs. Humpbacks come into the bay through the winter, close enough to watch from the balcony. Hawaii at the pace it used to move, with golf on the cliffs above. Getting there means a ferry from Maui or a short hop by plane, and that alone filters the crowds.
Arenal, Costa Rica
A natural thermal river runs straight through the gardens, dropping through pools and falls beneath the canopy, and it is the entire reason to come. Busy in the middle of the day, so go early or late and ask about the adults-only springs. Arenal fills the view, the rainforest starts at the edge of the lawn, and the water is hot all year. Stay on the property and the springs are effectively yours once the day visitors leave.
Paris, France
An 1855 Second Empire building on the corner between the Louvre and the Palais Royal, about as central as Paris gets. Grand rather than boutique: high ceilings, tall windows, a glass-roofed lobby. Pissarro painted the avenue below from an upstairs window. Worth it on a first visit for the walking alone, with the Comédie-Française next door. Ask for a room on the Place André Malraux side for the view down the avenue.
St. Helena, California
Adult-focused, off the Silverado Trail in St. Helena and surrounded by working vineyard. Sixty-four rooms open straight onto the vines, with outdoor fireplaces and soaking tubs on the terraces. Small enough to feel private in a valley that often is not, and central enough that the wineries worth the detour are minutes in either direction. Book a vineyard-view room rather than a garden one; the difference is real.
Wailea, Maui
On Wailea Beach, along Maui’s drier and sunnier south shore. A big, polished resort rather than a boutique one, and very good at being exactly that: three pools including one reserved for adults, a beach you can properly swim off, and a deep balcony on every room. Easy with children, easy with a group, and easy to do nothing at all. Ask for a room high on the ocean side; the difference in outlook is worth the jump.
Tell me where you want to go. I will tell you where to stay.
It costs you nothing. There is no fee, no retainer and no markup, and you pay the hotel directly at their own rate or better.
I am paid by the hotel, as a commission on the room rate, after you check in. Hotels work this way because an advisor is a sales channel that brings them guests who are a good match for the property, at rates the hotel sets. It also means my incentive lines up with yours more than you might expect: I am paid when you actually stay, so sending you somewhere you dislike is the worst outcome for me.
All I ask is that you let me book the hotels, since that is where the entire business model sits.
Every major luxury hotel group runs an invitation only program for travel advisors. Membership comes with negotiated rates and a defined package of amenities that the hotel commits to honor for that advisor’s clients.
Through Fora I am a member of those programs. None of them are available to the public, and most are not available to an individual advisor working alone. Fora is large enough to hold membership across all of them, which is why one person can book you into almost any luxury property and still bring the program benefits along.
When you send me a hotel, the first thing I check is which programs cover it and which one gets you the most. That comparison is the actual work.
The package varies by property and by program, and I will tell you exactly what applies to your booking before you commit rather than after. The typical set is a free room upgrade at check in subject to availability, free daily breakfast, a welcome amenity, and early check in with late checkout where the house can accommodate it.
Some properties add more on top of that, and I will say so when they do. You also get a note to the general manager identifying you as a preferred client, which is the part that tends to show up in how you are treated rather than on the bill.
Use it where it is the better deal. Sometimes it is, and I will tell you so.
The difference is coverage and comparison. FHR is one program with one property list. I can book across all of the programs above, which between them cover a much larger set of hotels, and for any given property I can work out which program produces the best combination of rate and amenities. You do not have to track any of it. And if the room you were promised is not the room you are standing in, you have someone to contact directly.
Send me a screenshot. In most cases I can take it to the hotel and have it matched, with the amenities still attached. Where a hotel will not match it, I will tell you that booking it yourself is the better move.
Hotels are where I can do the most for you, so that is where I put my time. On flights you will usually come out ahead using your own points and a fare tracker, and I would rather tell you that than book something you could have done better yourself.
Send me your routing anyway before you lock it in. A connection that lands at the wrong hour can quietly cost you the first day of a trip, and that is an easy thing to catch.
No. I will book whatever hotel you want, and there are properties in the partner programs at a wide range of price points, including city hotels that are fairly ordinary in price.
What is true is that the benefits tend to be better the higher the rate. At the top end the upgrade is a bigger jump, more properties add extras of their own, and more programs compete for the booking. At lower rates fewer properties participate and the amenity package thins out. So it is always worth asking, and I will tell you honestly when a particular booking will not gain much by going through me.
You contact me. A wrong room, a failed air conditioner, a restaurant that lost your reservation, a cancelled flight that costs you a night. I have a direct line to the property that you do not, and resolving those situations is a large part of what the programs are for.
Two to four months for most trips, and earlier for peak dates, small properties, and anywhere in August. Shorter notice is often still workable, so it is worth asking either way.
Tell me roughly what you are thinking. There is no commitment in sending this, and I will come back with real options within a day.