Family Office Travel: Planning, Booking, and Supporting, From First Call to First Trip

For nearly three years, my work as a luxury travel advisor has centered on family offices, private clients, and the executive assistants and Chiefs of Staff who coordinate their lives.

Before I booked a single hotel room, I spent two decades in executive roles in oil, gas, and mining construction across Australia, Southeast Asia, and North America, alongside senior leaders who could not afford to let the details slip. I understand the pressure of supporting principals, making decisions with incomplete information, and resolving problems before they reach the people you support.

When I began working with family offices, I recognized that responsibility immediately — the work draws on skills I had spent years developing in my earlier career.

Now, as in my previous roles, I serve as a trusted point of contact for their travel, from understanding the preferences of individual travelers to planning complex trips, negotiating private events and group stays, coordinating with multiple members of an office, and handling changes when plans do not go as expected.

If you are an executive assistant managing a principal's travel, you already know what those unexpected failures look like: a vendor who needs a forty-five-minute briefing before they can help, a booking made without checking the schedule, a confirmation that lands in the wrong inbox.

That is not the relationship I am describing here. When a family office contacts me, I begin with one conversation: how the team operates, who travels, and what must be addressed first. I build traveler profiles as soon as the team is ready. Once payment cards are on file and decisions are made, I begin booking.

I have written before about why a family office chooses a dedicated travel advisor over an in-house travel desk. This article begins after that decision has been made. What does an executive assistant, Chief of Staff, or principal actually experience from that first call to that first trip?

The First Conversation: Learning What the Office Needs

My first call is usually with the person who will be my primary contact. Depending on the office, that might be an executive assistant, Chief of Staff, personal assistant or estate manager.

I want to understand the travel already on their desk. Is there a trip that needs booking this week? An annual stay that requires particular suites? Several family members traveling from different cities? Starting with the work in front of us makes the conversation more useful than going through a long questionnaire.

We also establish how decisions are made. Who can approve a hotel? Is there a spending threshold that needs the principal’s sign-off? If the principal contacts me directly, whom should I update afterward? Who needs the full itinerary, and who only needs arrival details?

These answers vary from one office to another. In some teams, the assistant is my point of contact for almost everything. In others, the principal prefers to discuss the trip with me while a Chief of Staff oversees the schedule and approvals. I work within the structure the team already uses.

The timeline for this process can move as quickly as you want it to. In that first call, I also explain how I am compensated. I do not charge service fees; my compensation comes entirely through commissions paid by the travel suppliers I book — hotels, airlines, and ground operators. There are no additional sources of income from a client engagement. The office I am working with should understand that arrangement at the outset and feel comfortable asking how I have evaluated a recommendation.

The commission model makes this accessible at a level that matches how family offices already spend on travel. I work with clients whose annual travel budgets range from several hundred thousand dollars to well above seven figures. The commission I receive from suppliers — typically ten to fifteen percent, paid by the property or carrier, not by the client — is built into the rates you would pay regardless of how the booking was made. You are not paying more to have a dedicated advisor in place; you are paying the same rate with embedded planning, oversight, and crisis coverage included.

Profiles and Preparation for Booking

Once we know who is involved, we can begin completing traveler VIP profiles. I gather the information needed for bookings and learn the preferences that affect the trip: room configuration, airline preferences, arrival needs, and any details the team wants me to communicate to a property.

Guest profiles are starting points, not a substitute for asking questions. A family that needed connecting rooms last summer may need separate suites this year. A principal may want a familiar hotel for a demanding work trip but be open to somewhere new for a holiday.

Payment cards can then be placed on file, and I can move into bookings. There is no requirement to map an entire year of travel before I can handle an immediate request. If the team has a trip coming up soon, I address it. As travel is booked, I ensure support is in place for the journey — coordination, on-the-ground contacts, and after-hours coverage built into the arrangement from the start.

This stage also helps me understand how the office makes decisions. One assistant may bring my recommendations to the principal for approval; another may have authority to approve bookings within agreed parameters. Either way, I handle the booking and coordinate the travel once the decision is made. We establish that approval process early so there is no confusion when plans need to move quickly.

The First Recommendation

My first proposal is an opportunity to show the team how I make decisions. I do not want to send a long list of hotels and leave an assistant to do the analysis.

I might present one or two options, explain why each made the shortlist and highlight which I highly recommend. The tradeoffs should be clear: a better location but a smaller suite, a preferred property with limited flexibility, or an itinerary that gives the principal more time between commitments.

For a client’s recurring festive stay at Royal Mansour in Marrakech, for example, the work involves much more than securing rooms. The suite configuration needs to serve the family, the dates need careful attention and arrangements at the property need to be addressed well before arrival. Each stay also teaches me something that informs the next one.

On a first trip, I will have less history to draw upon. That makes the questions and the explanation behind my recommendation especially important. If an attractive property does not suit the schedule or the people traveling, I will say so. The team should know what it is approving and why I believe it is the right choice. Everything I learn from this first proposal is added to the principal's client profile so I am never asking the same question twice.

What a Family Office Receives Before Travel

After a decision is approved, I make sure the relevant people can find the confirmed arrangements.

Through my host agency's app, available on Google Play and the App Store, the family office can access past, current, and future itineraries, export an individual itinerary as a PDF, and communicate directly with the concierge team and me in one place.

If an assistant prefers a PDF sent to a particular email alias, I can provide that too. At this stage, we agree on who receives what. The principal may want the full itinerary available in the app. An estate manager may need arrival times and transfer details. An assistant may need confirmations and a concise summary they can refer to when the principal asks a question.

Sharing information thoughtfully matters. Sending every detail to everyone can create more work and expose travel information to people who do not need it. Too little information leaves the team unable to do its job. The first trip helps us find the right balance for that particular office.

It is also a chance to check small but consequential details before departure. Does the room configuration match what was approved? Do flight arrivals align with transfers? Has the property received the VIP Client Profile? If something has changed since the original request, I want the team to see the revised plan before the principal is on the move.

It is one thing to have the confirmations filed and the VIP brief sent. It is another to be available when the journey does not go as planned.

Support While the Family Is Traveling

Last November, a principal traveling with family through Greece encountered a timing issue mid-trip due to an arrangement the principal made directly that put their Athens connection (and the flights home beyond it) at risk. I identified the conflict before they did, rebooked the crossing to an earlier departure, and arranged a private transfer from the port directly to the terminal. They arrived at Athens International with time to spare. The assistant learned about the change through a single message. The principal never had to manage a call.

That is what the relationship looks like in motion. It does not pause when the itinerary is confirmed.

The principal can reach me directly at any hour — not a service desk, not a duty line, but me personally.

I work across multiple time zones: my clients travel across Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and the Americas, and my own base spans Texas and Australia. When a principal is mid-itinerary and something changes, I am the first call regardless of where either of us is.

If the matter requires on-the-ground coordination — a driver, a hotel duty manager, a charter crew — I make those calls while keeping the principal informed rather than asking them to manage a chain of contacts themselves. I explain the options, their implications, and my recommendation to the principal with authority to make those calls. That is why we establish the decision path before the trip begins.

The update after should be straightforward: what changed, what has been confirmed, and whether anything remains open. The assistant should not wake up to a collection of messages they have to piece together before briefing the principal.

Learning from the First Trip

After the family returns, I look at both the trip and the way we worked together.

Did the principal have the right amount of information? Were my updates useful to the assistant? Did anyone have to ask twice for a confirmation? Was an approval delayed because it was unclear who could give it? What preferences should be recorded for the next journey?

The answers may call for small changes. We might shorten the options I send, add someone to arrival updates or route a certain type of decision through the Chief of Staff. We also update VIP client profiles when a preference has changed or a new one has become clear.

I want the team to tell me if the process added work instead of removing it. Good family office travel support is not measured only by whether the hotel and flights went smoothly. It should also make the people responsible for the principal’s schedule more confident that travel is being handled.

Some offices want an advisor who executes each request exactly as sent. I ask questions and recommend changes when I see a timing issue, a poor hotel fit, or a risk to the wider trip. The first journey gives both sides a practical sense of whether that approach works for the team. If it doesn't, we readjust.

If it does, the second trip starts from a better place — and that is what effective family office travel management looks like in practice. I know more about the family, the assistant knows what to expect from me, and we have already agreed on how to share information and make decisions. We refine the relationship with each engagement, without asking the office to repeat everything from the beginning.

If you are a principal, Chief of Staff or executive assistant ready to put this support in place, I welcome an initial conversation. You can reach me directly at alisha@luxrallytravel.com or connect with me below.

I start with the trip in front of you and build a working process around the way your office operates.