Why we don't publish prices

A private office does not hold inventory. What is being arranged is a set of relationships, held in a particular order, on particular dates, for a particular household. The same eight-day journey costs materially different amounts depending on the season, the aircraft, the size of the party, whether a camp is taken privately, and whether a member wants a doctor travelling with them. A published figure would be wrong for almost everyone who read it.

Rate cards also change behaviour in ways that hurt the work. They push an office toward the packages that fit the card, and away from the ones that fit the family.

Every engagement begins with a conversation and ends, before anything is committed, with a written proposal that shows the composition and the cost together — line by line, with the office's fee stated plainly rather than buried in a margin. If a member wants to remove a leg, upgrade an aircraft or take a camp exclusively, the number moves in front of them, not behind them.

Members on the Select and Private levels of the Privilege Network work on an annual arrangement, so the marginal decisions during a year are not price negotiations at all. That is usually the point at which the relationship starts to feel like an office rather than a booking service.

There is a version of this argument that is really about hiding a margin, and we want to be clear that it is not ours. Members see what the office is paid. What is not public is what any individual household spends, which is a matter for them.

The practical test we hold ourselves to: a member should be able to read a proposal once and know exactly what they are buying, what we are being paid to arrange it, and what would change if they changed their mind.