Most of my friends know that I am a travel advisor. And none of them know how I get paid as a travel advisor. I think they assume I charge a fee or there is a certain percentage that is tacked on to the final price that goes to me.
So, when a friend asked me why anyone would use a travel advisor it was a fair question. Between Google and AI, there is a lot of information out there to help people plan trips.
She’d been planning an anniversary trip for months and had officially hit the research wall. Multiple browser tabs open. Watched the same YouTube review watched three times. And still no actual booking.
If you’ve been circling the same question, I’ll give you the same answer I gave her. The version I’d give over a glass of wine, not the version a travel agency would put on a brochure.
A good travel advisor is absolutely still worth it in 2026, especially for a luxury journey that actually matters to you. And in most cases, it costs you nothing. Hotels and travel suppliers pay the advisor. You don’t.
I don’t charge a fee for most trips. The only time I would charge a fee is for a trip that requires multiple moving parts across multiple locations with lots of upfront planning before anything is even booked. A destination wedding or a family reunion type of trip.
Do Travel Advisors Cost Money?
No. Working with a luxury travel advisor like me costs you nothing out of pocket. Advisors are paid by hotels and suppliers, not by clients, and clients often receive perks they wouldn’t get booking on their own.
When I tell clients this, the response is almost always the same. A pause. Then: “Wait, what’s the catch?”
There isn’t one. Here’s how it actually works.
I’m affiliated with Fora Travel, a network of vetted advisors with relationships at thousands of hotels, resorts, and travel suppliers around the world. When I book a client into a property, the hotel pays me a commission. It’s a model that’s existed in some form for decades. It’s how the industry has always paid the people who bring it good business.
What it means for you: the same hotel, on the same date, costs the same whether you book it yourself on a search engine or you book it through me. Same room. Same rate. Occasionally I have access to better rates. The biggest difference is what happens around the booking with upgrades and other perks.
Can’t I Just Plan This Myself Online?
You can plan a basic trip online. But for a luxury journey worth investing in, DIY planning costs you in time, access, and the small details that turn a nice trip into one you remember for years.
So technically, yes. You can absolutely open Google, lose hours of your life, and emerge with a serviceable itinerary.
This is what a good travel advisor can help you with that Google can’t.
Save Time. A genuinely well-planned luxury journey takes many hours of research and decision-making to get right. It can become a part-time job for months. Most clients I work with realize that at some point they’d researched themselves into a corner. Too many options, no clear way to compare them, a growing suspicion that the whole thing might not actually be that good.
Access. This is the one Google can’t help you with. I have relationships at properties where the front desk knows my name. When I send a client, the hotel knows that client matters to me. So when there’s a chance for an upgrade, a room with the better view, a quiet table at the restaurant that doesn’t show up on the booking system, or a hotel manager who personally makes sure the surprise birthday cake arrives at the right moment, that chance goes to my client more often than it goes to a stranger who booked online.
A note on this: nothing is guaranteed. Anyone in this industry who promises you guaranteed upgrades is either lying or about to be very disappointed. What you actually have, working with a Fora advisor with real relationships, is significantly better odds. The room blocks I’m working from, the contacts I can call when something goes sideways, the hotel partners who know me. Those are real. They just don’t come with a written promise. Nothing in travel does.
There are small things you don’t know you don’t know. Whether the hotel in Florence has scaffolding on its facade this fall. Whether the resort in Mexico has gotten louder since the last renovation. Whether the lodge in Iceland is actually the one with the soaking tubs, or the sister property that doesn’t have them. Whether the restaurant everyone’s writing about is actually any good or just very photogenic. These things change constantly. My job is to know them. Your job is not to have to.
What Does a Travel Advisor Actually Do for You?
A luxury travel advisor handles intake, planning, vetted recommendations, vendor coordination, and real-time troubleshooting. You bring the vision and the dates. The advisor handles the rest.
If you work with me you start with an intake form. Some clients come to me with a fully formed plan. Some come with a feeling and a date range. Both are fine. The intake form is just where the conversation starts.
We talk through your vision. I want to understand what you actually want from this journey, what you don’t want, and what your non-negotiables are. Sometimes those are practical: a specific room category, a dietary thing. Sometimes they’re “I want to come home rested, not needing a second vacation to recover from the first one.” Both get planned for.
Then I come back with options. Not seventeen of them. Two or three considered ones, with reasoning for each. You choose. I handle the rest, including the things that go wrong, because something almost always does. Flights move. Weather happens. The renovation that was supposed to be done isn’t done. When that happens at 6am your time and you’re three time zones into a trip, you do not want to be on hold with a 1-800 number. You want a text message that says “already handled, here’s plan B.”
That’s what you’re actually paying for. Which, again, you’re not paying for.
Who Is a Travel Advisor Not For?
A luxury travel advisor isn’t the right fit for budget-focused trips, last-minute weekend getaways, or anyone whose top priority is the cheapest possible booking. There are journeys I’m not the right person for, and being honest about that is part of how I work.
If your priority is finding the cheapest possible hotel, an advisor isn’t the right fit. The luxury supplier network I work within doesn’t operate at the budget end of the market. Your time and money are better spent on a discount aggregator.
If you need to leave in four days for a long weekend, I’m probably not your person either. Quick turnarounds happen, but they’re not where the work shines.
And if you’re someone who genuinely loves the planning process, who finds it relaxing, who reads guidebooks for fun? More power to you. Keep doing it. Some people love it. Most of the clients who find me at Roam with Kristin don’t. They’ve tried to love it. They’ve kept the spreadsheet. They’ve made the Pinterest board. And somewhere around month two they realized they were exhausted by something that was supposed to feel exciting.
That’s who I’m for. The client who has good taste, real means, and absolutely no interest in spending eight Sundays in a row researching small luxury hotels in Portugal.
How Do I Know If a Travel Advisor Is the Right Call for My Trip?
A travel advisor is worth it when the journey matters, the budget supports luxury, and you’d rather invest your time being present than planning. Honeymoons, anniversaries, milestone birthdays, and meaningful girlfriend getaways are the sweet spot.
You can imagine yourself actually enjoying being there, but you cannot imagine enjoying the planning. There’s a version of you who arrives relaxed. And there’s a version of you who arrives already running on fumes because the last six weeks were spent on logistics. You know which version of you walks off that plane if you DIY it.
The journey is a real milestone. A honeymoon. A tenth anniversary. A fortieth birthday with the friends you actually like. The first big trip after the kids left for college. The girls’ weekend you’ve been talking about for six years and finally said yes to. These are the journeys that deserve real planning. They are not the trips to wing.
If any of that sounds like you, the wine-with-a-friend answer is yes. It’s worth it.
That’s the part most clients don’t realize is available to them. They think the choice is between exhausting themselves planning a luxury trip, or settling for something less. There’s a third option. It’s been there the whole time. It costs you nothing, and it gives you back the hours you’d have spent comparing infinity pools at one in the morning.
If you’ve been circling this, fill out the intake form at roamwithkristin.com/contact. It takes about ten minutes. You don’t need to know what you want yet. That’s what the conversation is for.
Kristin