Journal

“There’s an upgrade” and “the upgrade is guaranteed” are a full room category apart. The Sindhorn Kempinski Bangkok put its upgrade ladder in writing, and it shows exactly which room you have to book if a suite with a separate living room…

Every Peninsula hotel offers Peninsula Time: check-in as early as 6 a.m. and check-out as late as 10 p.m., at no extra charge — 19 extra hours over one stay. The catch that trips people up: the hotel needs at least 24…

A VIP lounge on the third floor, a gift and a taxi back to your hotel once you spend €1,200, and a fast lane for the tax refund — all on one Virtuoso VIP e-pass you cannot apply for online. It comes…

Three nights in a Superior Room at The Peninsula Tokyo cost ¥855,075 whether you book direct or through me, and both rates are refundable. The difference is what comes with it: daily breakfast for two, a USD 100 credit, a welcome gift,…

Every August, the world’s best hotels, estates, private islands and destination specialists fly to one ballroom in Las Vegas to meet advisors table by table. What I negotiate at Virtuoso Travel Week is the part you will never find online.

No Aman, no Michelin stars, no spa. Of the animals I saw in eight days, seven exist nowhere else on Earth: a 100-year-old tortoise, an albatross that lays a single egg a year, a blue-footed booby doing its courtship dance a few…

J.K. Place’s fourth hotel opens in Rome at Via dei Prefetti 22, three minutes from the Pantheon: apartment-style suites of up to two bedrooms, designed by Michele Bönan. Booked through Virtuoso or the LHW Leaders Club, the stay includes breakfast, a USD…

The Bungalows at Pelican Hill: a double-height living room with a fireplace and a terrace looking straight at the Pacific. The Easter egg hunt, the holiday brunch, 30% off three nights — and the extra layer of benefits that comes with booking…

Four Seasons Tamarindo: rooms that open onto a wall of glass, a golf course with the Pacific on one side and palms on the other, a private beach ringed by rock, lobster and crab at dinner, and a sunset hour every single…

A stay at Mauna Kea Beach Hotel after its full renovation: earth-toned rooms that pull Kauna‘oa Bay indoors, 18 holes along the coast with the Pacific in view from every one, and the old-money character untouched.

Hyatt Regency Waikiki booked through Hyatt Privé: a high-floor ocean-view room, the whole shoreline below the balcony, a handwritten welcome card, breakfast included, and the lights of Waikiki running into the coast at night. What Privé actually added.

Every room at One&Only Mandarina is built into the canopy. Casa Atura or Casa Caracol comes down to three things — height in the trees, size of the pool, angle of the ocean view. The gong and reflecting pool on arrival, the…