Custom-Designed Luxury Travel Planning

Thank you for requesting custom services from The Society of International Railway Travelers. We are glad you contacted us.

Perhaps you have always arranged travel on your own. Or, perhaps you worked with an agent – who took your order and sent you on your way. Perhaps you have experienced luxury-level travel but you’d like to take it up a notch to enjoy totally stress-free planning and travel.

Our team of trained professionals LOVES planning custom travel for our guests, and we think that you will love our services and our process, too.

We can either add a great pre- or post- program to your existing train or tour booking with IRT – OR we can plan a completely custom journey for you. Note that standalone custom journeys (not featuring a train or cruise journey) must be at least 8 days in length.

As you probably know, our specialty is luxury trains—but our other, just-as-important specialty is intimate knowledge of our guests—and what “icing on the cake” will be fabulous for you.  Once we get to know you better, we can recommend just the right train, safari camp or hotel that will suit you to a “T.”

One couple who has traveled with us 18 times had this to say about our process:

“What’s not to like? It’s great. I like to have my hand held at this age. We are very spoiled, and we love it.”

 

Custom Itinerary Design Services

How to Begin:

1. First, set a complimentary 15-minute appointment to be sure we are a good match for one another. Please note that we only work with travel partners and hotels that have been vetted by IRT or Virtuoso, the luxury travel consortium of which we are a proud member.
2. Next, if we establish we are a good match for working together, please pay your retainer and make a one-hour Custom Itinerary Design appointment. The senior advisor most knowledgeable about your destination(s) will be assigned to work on your trip.

Our standard hours of availability for these appointments are as follows:

Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
If you require a time outside of these hours, please advise us and we will find a time to accommodate you.

Things to know about your Custom Itinerary Design appointment:

• Our retainer is $1,200 for most custom itineraries for 1 to 2 guests. Please call us with your credit card details in advance of your appointment to pay the retainer. This is non-refundable.
  • Our retainer assumes 6 hours of work on your program and up to two major edits of your itinerary. If changes, rethinking, and emails back and forth from our office to you and our travel partners go over 6 hours, we will invoice you at $200 per hour.
  • If possible, each person who will be taking part in the trip should be present for the appointment.
  • If there are more than two guests, the retainer will depend on the variations needed for each guest.
  • If, for any reason, you must reschedule your appointment, please call or e-mail us as soon as possible to let us know. A $25 rescheduling fee will be added to your planning fee if you must reschedule more than once.

What happens after our Custom Itinerary Design appointment?

• After our planning appointment, we will put together a detailed proposal based on our discussion, drawing from the vast resources of our experience and our partners around the world. This proposal will take into consideration your preferred type of travel, the pace you desire, type of hotels you love, sightseeing in which you are interested, and the depth of service you desire.
• We will e-mail you a draft proposal with pricing, typically within one to two weeks of our conversation. Note: Because of specially contracted rates to which our travel partners are privy, we cannot provide a pricing breakdown of the services. Your proposal will be presented with a total price for all included services.
• It is urgent that you reply to our proposal promptly. We are not holding space for accommodations or activities.
• If you wish to make changes to your proposal, please e-mail us with a complete list of changes you wish, and/or schedule a time to discuss.
• Once you approve the proposal, you will pay the deposit, which ranges from 30% to 40% depending on the travel partner with whom we are working. All deposits are nonrefundable. If you are booking within 90 days of travel, full payment may be due at time of booking.
• No hotels or services are confirmed until you approve your program details and pay your deposit.
• After you have approved your program and have made your deposit, your services and hotels will be booked and confirmed for you. Note: We cannot book select sightseeing, certain performances, and point-to-point train tickets until approximately two to three months prior to departure. Any services that are not confirmed at time of deposit will be made clear to you.
• If you wish to revise or change your program after approving it, you will be billed at $200/hour. Our partners may have other change fees that will apply.
• Please note that non-emergency assistance or discussions outside of regular business hours will be billed at $250/hour.

Hotel & Transfers Collaborative Planning

Maybe you want just hotels & transfers to extend your rail trip or cruise. If so, we are happy to oblige.

Our guests obtain a valuable set of complimentary Virtuoso amenities that add up to about $450 per hotel booking, not to mention a huge savings of your time. (You cannot get these amenities by booking directly – only through a Virtuoso advisor.)

You can also count on us to personally and directly reconfirm your hotel stay before you arrive to be SURE your room will be available as expected. We have never had any traveler bumped to another hotel.  Instead, our hotel specialists are on such great terms with the general managers and reservation managers throughout the world that our travelers often get free upgrades – sometimes thousands of dollars’ worth.

How to Begin:

1. Call or e-mail our office to schedule a 15-minute appointment with a senior advisor.
2. During our appointment, we will discuss what benefits result from IRT booking your hotels and transfers. We will decide if we are a good fit for one another.
   • Our fee to arrange hotels and transfers is $400 per hotel. This is assuming two hours of professional time. After we have agreed to work together, we will charge you our $400 retainer.
   • Hotel-only services usually only take us two hours; however, if for any reason this takes us longer than two hours, we will track our time and bill you again, after advising you of the amount, at our hourly rate of $200.
3. Based on our conversation with you, we will send you the best choices we offer in the city of your choice – with all the details of each hotel for your examination. Once you approve this, we make the booking on your behalf. These hotels range in cost from $300 to $1,000 per night, depending on the location, room type, the country and the hotel itself. Hotels are four- and five-star.
4. We will also book private transfers as needed, for which we will need your air schedule as soon as possible. Payment will be due directly to the hotel for this service.
   • If VIP meet & greet planeside is available and desired by you, we will order this on your behalf.

Our service includes:

• Once you make a selection, we will book directly with the hotel the room type of your choice.
• We will secure your exclusive, valuable Virtuoso amenities.
• We will advise the hotel of your time of arrival so they can do their best to have your room ready.
• We will advise the hotel of any mobility issues or food allergies.
• We will advise of any celebrations.
• We will advise of any bedding allergies or requests.
• We will request VIP welcome and complimentary upgrade, if available, usually with the director of sales or general manager of the hotel.
• We will personally reconfirm your booking closer to the time of your arrival and reconfirm your Virtuoso amenities, your room type and location within the hotel and your bedding type.
• We will also reconfirm your transfers directly.

Payment for each hotel and transfer are typically guaranteed by your credit card and payable directly to the hotel during travel. Please note that our cancellation penalty is $50 per hotel booking, in addition to the terms and conditions of the hotel itself.

 

Air Planning Services:

We recommend working with our great air partners at FlySmoother for assistance with booking your flights.  FlySmoother charges $150 per person to ticket flights (fees are higher for tickets purchased with miles). We will send you their contact information if you wish to use their services.

You will get the best schedules, pricing and, best of all, 24/7 service if something goes wrong.  Also, our partner will check you in for your flights and email the boarding passes.

Note that the names on your air tickets must match your passports exactly. Please also note that it is your responsibility to notify FlySmoother at once if there are issues with your ticket so they can manage any difficulties in a timely way.

 

Important notes about our process:

Communication: It is our expectation that you will collaborate with us as best you can, and this means prompt and thorough communication. After the one-hour Custom Itinerary Design telephone conversation, we can communicate with you via your preferred communication method (e-mail, text, telephone, WhatsApp).

Please be as prompt as possible in answering our advisors. Many elements of a travel program cannot be held at all, and some can be held for only 24 hours. Please avoid disappointment and get back with us promptly.

Information: You can count on us to supply you with an abundance of preparation materials, such as information about visas you may need, recommended reading, advice on what to wear, gratuities and what vaccinations may be required for your destinations.

24/7 Backup:  One key element of our process is 24/7 backup from us. We will check in with you before, during and after you travel. You will receive a manager’s 24/7 personal cell phone number to call or text if you need help while traveling, as well as numbers for our local partners who will be assisting you on the ground.  When you travel with us, you won’t be on your own.

What we book: We only book Virtuoso five-star hotels or select four-star/boutique hotels inspected by IRT or by our Virtuoso partners. We will not book hotels based on any other criteria.  We have hotels, villas, yachts, boats, and gullets – just about any accommodation you could imagine – at our fingertips. Our professionals do not arrange overnights for you in hotels of which we have no knowledge.

Insurance: We recommend trip cancellation insurance.  Please purchase insurance once the first element of your trip is confirmed and deposit has been made.  You can increase your coverage to include other elements and revise the dates later. It is your responsibility to ensure the dates on the policy and coverage amount are correct – departure from home/and return dates are crucial parts of the policy.

Referrals and reviews: One of the highest compliments you can pay us is to refer your friends and family to us. This is the lifeblood of our business. Another important feature of our process is to review your journey with your advisor when you return. This won’t take long – but it is essential for us to know what was WOW for you – and what you would like to do differently next time.

 

Why IRT?  About Us:

Our family-founded and operated agency does not work like most. All of our advisors are full-time employees with college degrees who make a good salary not based on commission, enjoy paid vacations, paid sick days, paid trainings, paid study tours, and have regular contact with Virtuoso partners around the world, health insurance and a profit-sharing plan. We are all members of Virtuoso’s Adventure Community; Mrs. Hardy is a member of the UltraLuxe Community. All bring additional benefits to booking with IRT. Mrs. Hardy has been named a “Top Travel Specialist” by Conde Nast Traveler magazine annually since 2020, and to the A List of Travel & Lesiure’s best travel specialists in 2022 & 2023.

Our business plan prioritizes the long view over the short: we count on dedicated repeat travelers. Many of our guests have traveled with us dozens of times. They come back year after year because they are thrilled with our personal service, expert planning, great recommendations and wonderful, dedicated travel partners around the world.

They know our staff is not “trying to sell them something,” and that we will be frank and won’t book travel if their request will result in a less-than-wonderful outcome for you.

Thank you so much for reading about our process. We appreciate your business very much, and we look forward to making your dream for this journey—and many in the future—a reality. Please let me know how we can exceed your expectations.

Sincerely,

Eleanor Flagler Hardy
President
The Society of International Railway Travelers