Transcript of Flying Limes In From Different Countries and $5K Crab: What Life Is Really Like as a Luxury Travel Agent with Olivia Ferney New

I'm traveling to Orlando soon for a conference and I'm really looking forward to it. We travel to Florida pretty often to visit my in-laws and those trips are always such a nice reset for us. I'm definitely a sunshine girl, so any chance to spend time by the water, whether it's at the beach or just sitting by the pool, makes me so happy. Lately I've been thinking about what it would be like to have a place closer to family so we'd always have our own space when we visit. And when we're back home, we could list the place in Florida on Airbnb instead of letting it sit empty. What makes that idea feel much more manageable now is the co-host network. You can connect with a local co-host who has hosting experience and can help take care of the important details. A co-host can help create the listing, manage reservations, message guests, and help make sure everything runs smoothly for guests during their stay.

Honestly, it just feels like a practical way to make better use of a place we'd already love spending time in while also bringing in a little little extra cash from time to time.

If you're interested in hosting and want a little help getting started, find a co-host at Airbnb.com/host.

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That's privatewealthcollective.com. This episode was taped in the Money News Network studio, brought to you by U.S.

Bank.

So when somebody asks me for a lime from a different country, I'm like, get her the damn lime. We need— if we need to go take a plane to fly a lime down for her to have a fresh margarita that's not from Barbados, We'll do it.

Liv Ferny introduces herself as the woman who gets yelled at on the phone. And if you've seen her videos, you know why. Liv is a luxury travel agent booking 5-star vacations for billionaires. So of course I had to ask her the most outrageous requests she's received.

And I'm like, they literally just delivered fresh caviar to you 20 minutes ago. I know it's not old. I know it's not warm. It's sitting on ice.

What working with the 0.1% has taught her about money.

Money is not everything. It's really, really great and it can bring you a lot of happiness, but At the end of the day, if you don't have good relationships with your people, then your relationship with money doesn't really matter. You can be rich and depressed, but you're still depressed.

And travel tips that work at any price point.

They upgrade her to first class all the time. No way! They don't do that. I know. So I was shocked.

I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Olivia, Liv, hi, Birdie! Welcome to Money Rehab.

I'm so happy to be here.

I'm so happy to have you here. My producer told me that we shake hands the same way. I didn't even know that was a thing.

Sick, love that. Are you a— are you a grabber?

I didn't even know I was a grabber. I didn't know a grabber was a thing.

It's a real thing, right? Like if You were like, yeah, that's just like a kind—

why?

I've never met another woman that's done that, by the way.

I didn't even know that I did that. She was like, you, you shake hands the same way. And I was like, I did what? Interesting. And I just felt like that was something that was so profoundly deconstructed on your part as I—

so deeply, yeah, thorough, thoroughly thought through for me. I've been thinking about it since I was a tiny child. So the fact that you just did it is why you're crushing it. That's right.

That's right. Um, so I What is your life? What is happening?

Who, what is your job? I don't even know. It's crazy. I mean, I don't even know where to start now. I mean, we're traveling 300 days of the year. I'm dealing with some of the wealthiest, well-known people in the world, and I'm getting to be an influencer on top of it all right now. So that's been really fun. So yeah, it's just, just absolute chaos. But for those of you that don't know me, I'm, I, you might know me as the girl that gets screamed at over the phone. I am Travel with Libby online and yeah, I basically am a luxury travel agent for the rich and famous.

Yeah, you are. So when did you first book your first gig?

So backstory here a little bit. I sold my first company back in Canada, um, when I was 20— I'm going to say 21, um, and then moved to Miami because I'm like, there is just so much more money, I think, outside of Canada. No hate on Canada, I love my country, but there's more opportunity over here. And I was like, I want to go try and live the American dream and make something magical happen and build a better life for myself. So I Literally packed up two suitcases, moved down for six months, was just going out for dinner by myself every single night trying to make new friends. And I did a full like six months there for the first time. Nothing really happened. Came back home for a bit and was like, let's try this again. Went back out and met Troy, my amazing fiancé, and, uh, who is here cheering you on from the sidelines. And, uh, yeah, he told me about his business. I just fell in love with his business. It was the coolest thing I'd ever heard. The quietness of it all, the fact that nobody knew about it yet.

It felt like I had got a pre-IPO opportunity. I was so excited. And yeah, I basically forced him to hire me, and now we're here.

Now we're here. How about that? I hear, I hear the Canadian coming out. How about that?

Yeah, I know. I mean, I talk about it quite a, quite a lot, but working in this type of industry, I think I was a little bit naive to how easy it would be to make money. Kind of reverse of what I just said, but I thought I was gonna be able to jump in and make millions of dollars very quickly. I'm like, these people are spending outrageous amounts of money. Rich people love me. Like I'm a young pretty girl. Not how it works. Just cuz you're cute and bouncy and young doesn't mean that everybody's gonna wanna throw hundreds of millions of dollars at you. No. So yeah, I spent my first 6 months not making a single sale. Pretty sure Troy regretted hiring me for those first 6 months. Love you, sweetie. But we got through it. And, uh, yeah, eventually I started to make sales and then the Instagram really took off as well, which was a huge helping hand. I mean, that, 3x the business.

So, okay, breaking news, so you actually have to work to make money. Surprise, surprise. Uh, good to know.

Uh, so try telling a young 20-year-old in Miami that, right?

Right. And then, so you make money off commissions, you make a flat fee, how does it work?

So I make a flat fee off my clients. We charge $100,000 flat retainer for our services. Um, and then on top of that, I make personally my money from influencing a lot as well.

What is the most expensive trip you've ever booked? Because I'm assuming the more expensive, the more commission you're getting in some way.

So now, Since we've launched the Concierge Plus program, we're not taking commissions like a standard travel agent. So normally a client would go online and be like, well, I pay Liv to handle all of this, so it might be 10 grand upfront, but I'm gonna pay her 12.5 because she's handling all the nitty-gritty stuff of it. Now, because of the retainer, we're able to really get in there and negotiate. So my job is not to take commissions on top of that. Um, my job is to get my clients the best rate.

So traditional travel agencies work how the hotels or the events are paying the agents to suggest their particular product?

So it really depends on what you're doing. I think everybody does it differently. I have yet to see any travel agent run the same way that we do. Troy is a negotiating mastermind. Like I've never seen anybody work a room the way that Troy does. So when he is in your corner, he is in there beating the door down on, you know, your airlines, your private jets, your hotels, your villas. Your yachts to get the best price for the client. But a traditional travel agent might just have an IATA and get the 10% booking on the back end, um, or they might upcharge depending on what kind of services.

What's the IATA? I see it when you're booking, you're like, do you have an IATA number?

Yeah, that just means you're a registered travel agent. So you have to— for anybody trying to become a travel agent, please go get certified. It's not something you can just start doing on the side. Um, you do have to have your proper certifications, which you, you do get.

Take a test, basically.

Yeah. There's just a bunch of little, little things, but you just have to reach out to a consortia and, and join. And yeah, that's kind of it. It's not super complicated, but something you do have to do and you have to be registered in your state as well.

Cause some people say that that's a hack to like save money. Is it, is it, or is it better to work with you guys?

It depends on what you're doing. I think if you're a family that's spending under $50,000, I mean, if you take your family to the Caribbean nowadays for 5 people at a decent hotel, you're gonna spend probably around $30,000 to $40,000. It sounds crazy, but that's like what the market is nowadays. For us, you know, our people are spending $1 to $2+ million a year, so for them, they definitely don't want to do that. My job is honestly just to make their lives easier. That's where my value kind of comes in. So for those people, that's a complete waste of time and energy. They would never want to get, um, their IATA or anything. But for the average person that's maybe thinking of doing a part-time job and wants to play around with it, it could be something that you could explore. It's like a childhood dream is coming true. I'm trying to just sit and take it all in because it's like just the, the best life I could possibly have right now is right now.

It feels that way. What's the craziest— I know you've talked about a lot of crazy, uh, requests that you've gotten over the years. What are some that have stood out?

So many. I mean, food stuff for me has always been very difficult. I think— I, I don't know if you've seen the lime video. That one went Everywhere. People were really shocked by it. The funniest part about that video is I remember filming it and posting it and saying, this is so stupid. Like no one's gonna find this interesting cuz I'm so just unaware sometimes of how particular these people are. So when somebody asks me for a lime from a different country, I'm like, get her the damn lime. We need, if we need to go take a plane to fly a lime down for her to have a fresh margarita that's not from Barbados, we'll do it. And that's not, just doesn't strike me as crazy anymore, I guess. But people really, really thought that was, that one was insane.

Wait a minute, but that was real? Yeah. Like some of these are reenacted, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, but some of them are legit.

All of them are from some sort of like derived from a real scenario. I'm, I wish I was creative enough to come up with this stuff, but yeah, everybody thinks it's just like a marketing ploy, but we are reenacting insane stories from our clients.

So the first time I saw you was somebody sent me one of your videos and they were like, and we'll bleep this out. They were like, is this ? And so I was like, I don't know. I don't even know who this is.

No, that's hilarious.

But no. So have people guessed like who are—

I love the guessing game. I love the guessing game. The thing is, it's, they're reenactments with actors and a lot of people are like part of our team or, you know, friends and family. So when people are guessing the voice tones, I'm like, you're never gonna be able to figure it out. That's just not, um, you know, it's— you're gonna be guessing about my mom, so it's definitely not somebody you're gonna know.

Is your mom in the videos too?

Yeah, she's done a couple. She's done a couple. My mom is getting more particular as she does more of them too, so I swear that she is. I know she's becoming a client slowly but surely.

Okay, so you are reenacting with your team, um, people can't guess who the real people are, but do the real people want to be part of So the calls or the videos?

Crazy enough, we actually, there was a huge influx around, I think maybe 8, 8 or 9 months ago. I got so many new clients. Um, and this was right before we launched the Concierge Plus program. So we don't, before there wasn't like a pre-vetted way of knowing what the clientele were like, but they said they wanted to book, you know, $200,000 trip. Of course I'm gonna take that trip, especially at that time. So they came in with the notion of being like, I wanna be a part of the calls. And that shocked my, I could not believe that anyone would wanna volunteer to be a part of this. Of course, we have, Troy's been doing this for 15 years, so we have a black book of stories from over a decade. So there's so many things that we can pull from, but if they wanna give us new material, I'm never gonna say no to that. But what happened was people were going above and beyond to kind of be rude and go outta their way to call me at 4 in the morning and just be very upset that, you know, a helicopter wasn't where it was supposed to be at the right time and this food was old.

And I'm like, they literally just delivered fresh caviar to you 20 minutes ago. I know it's old. I know it's not old. I know it's not warm. It's sitting on ice. So, um, I think that was a little bit of a problem. And now when we launched the Concierge Plus program, that kind of got rid of those barriers cuz it's really, really highly qualified people that do not wanna be a part of the videos. And that's just an understanding we have. And there's NDAs everywhere and all those good things. But there was a very fun period in between where we are and where we started, or where I started, where people were volunteering like crazy. And it was definitely very high stress for me. I will say.

I can't imagine that because you would think the richer you are, the more private you wanna be. Like there's the saying that money talks, but wealth is very quiet.

Yeah. So people ask me a lot about this actually. If there's a lot of, we have a lot of clients that are new money. We have a lot of clients that are old money and a lot of them don't like each other. There is kind of this disdain for, you know, everybody's so flashy and everybody's so, you know, too quiet or not spending their money enough. They should learn to live. I'm like, everybody just needs to enjoy their wealth however they choose or decide to spend it. As long as you're spending it on a vacation, that is good with me. But most of my clients now are just obsessed with the content. They love it. They absolutely love it. Yeah. Even if it's not necessarily a story that they're a part of, like they could recite my last 20 videos off my like heart. It's insane. They really, really love it, which is great. I feel like we have a nice community of people that are all chatting about the calls and what's going on in my life. And I think some of them actually know what's going on in my life more than I do.

Is there a difference between old money and new money in the way that people suggest, like you mentioned flashy versus not. Is that— have you seen that to be true?

It's not as much of a bucket situation. I think everybody wants to put everybody in A or B. Every single one of my clients across the board, you know, we have a ton of billionaires we work with, people that are worth hundreds of millions, and, you know, over $10 million as well. And in all those sectors, there is old money and new money, of course, but they're all so individual that I can't really— like, they're all outliers. Nobody's sitting right on that dot being in that bucket, if that makes any sense. They all have their own personal things. They all vacation in different spots. They like what they like. Some people have 9th generation wealth and they're rocking the Gucci onesie. Like, go off, that's great, good for you, wear what makes you happy. But some people might call that, you know, super trashy, and some people might love it. So everybody in this world that I work with at least is just so individual. I wouldn't say it's as like black and white as everybody seems to think or want to hear, like, that it is like that.

Are they generally appreciative, or are you— are you—

calls the outliers? Yeah, it calls— it calls the outliers. So this is— we've been talking about this a lot recently, is Now as we're getting more selective because we have the ability to, our business has skyrocketed so much and we're able to let people go and we've turned down a lot of clients. We've let a lot of them go over the last couple months. And now I have a group of clients that I am so in love with. Like we're all friends, we love chatting. It's just, we're very happy and, and we have like a healthy relationship with work right now cuz we're able to choose who to say no to. Um, I wish I actually would've prioritized that a little bit more even at the beginning cuz I just lost. Months and months off my life, I bet, from not sleeping and just being so concerned about what the client was thinking. But truth be told, they were just bad clients. It wasn't me. My level of service has always stayed the same, but they just weren't the right clients for us. And I didn't have the ability in my mind to say no yet.

So now we've kind of stepped into our own and are taking that power of being like, hey, you're not the right person. F off. Time to go. Yeah.

I was gonna ask you. Yeah. So you've said no to new people, but have you fired? Yes. Clients? Mm-hmm. I mean, that's such an interesting concept in business too, because you think like the more the better, right? Like, well, how am I turning down this money? But not all money is the same.

Time is worth so much more value than cash. So if somebody is, yes, maybe giving you $2 million a year, if they're taking up 80% of your bandwidth, you're losing money on that deal.

I really believe that because everybody has billable hours.

A hundred percent. Not just lawyers. Yeah. Not just lawyers.

Divide how much you're making by the hours in the day. Hours in the day.

Yeah. So it's better to maybe replace that with 10 people that are spending 70% of what they are, but are just so much easier and kinder. You'll survive a lot better. Has anyone made you wanna quit? Oh my gosh. Yes. I really struggled at the beginning when the social started taking off again. We had that influx of interesting people. I will say that that was very tough for me. Yeah. Not sleeping. I started losing hair. I was just like so overwhelmed all the time. And I was— I would wake up— I love sleep. I'm an 8-hour-a-night girl. If I don't get any— like, last night I probably got an hour of sleep, and I'm gonna be hilarious in about 45 minutes. I don't operate well off of no sleep. Try and get it all the time. So for me, I was going to bed at 2 o'clock in the morning because I had international clients, and I would wake up in a full-blown, like, cortisol spike state at 4:30 in the morning and would just rinse and repeat that for, I think it was 2 months straight. My body just I was like completely falling apart and I'm like, I can't do this.

But again, start to place priorities on what was important and what's gonna get me through this and what's actually gonna make me like my job. And then things started to work out a lot better and now I'm sleeping again like a normal person.

You're killing it. 1 hour of sleep. I wish I was like, we're okay right now.

I know coffee does great things.

So has a particular person or request or situation pushed you to the brink?

I wouldn't necessarily say it was a single person, just more of accumulation of problems. I am extremely good at executing. You know, there's a lot of different skills in the world. That's kind of my area of expertise. Whether it's a good idea or a bad idea, I consider myself a GSD, which is like a get shit done person. Yeah, it's your zone of genius. So I will just go, go, go, and I never take no for an answer. So for me, sometimes I see some of my employees get told no, and then they'll come to me and say, hey, Well, we can't get this done. I'm like, yes you can. You can get anything done with the right mindset. Like you just don't take no for an answer and go do it. So I wouldn't say that there was so many opportunities where, or so many moments where something like that happened and I wasn't able to do it and kind of freaked out and, and wasn't feeling like this was the right job. It was just more beat down on beat down on beat down with the wrong client that kind of started to drive me nuts.

But we got through it.

What do you think are normal line items in a luxury itinerary? That would sound insane to most people?

This is a hard question for me. I'm trying to think of what's insane these days. I mean, something that we work with a lot is something that clients consider a bubble. So when a client leaves, they might have a bubble mindset, and that means that they don't want to talk to, see, or be in the same vicinity as anyone else except for their group for the entire trip. And that's not necessarily a— not necessarily a line item for an itinerary, but it's just a rule across the itinerary. And that could be quite difficult because that looks like, you know, back underground entrance to hotels. You know, they want to make sure that they have private security when they're getting from their house to their car, from their car to the hotel, and same on the way back. Um, you know, making sure that a chef comes up to the penthouse to cook them dinner and they don't have to go to a restaurant, or they have like a private dining room if they're going to do that for a restaurant. There's just like so many little intricate details of making sure that people stay in their bubble.

That I think is something that shocks people a little bit sometimes.

Is that more for people who you'd recognize?

No, I have lots of people that no one would know out in public whatsoever. They're not worth, you know, a billion dollars, and they're not celebrities, but they just genuinely don't want to see other people. They like their— I understand it. That one's the— that's one that makes sense to me for sure. But yeah, that's definitely something we hear a lot.

Is there a difference between working with rich entrepreneurs and celebrities? Yeah, absolutely.

Celebrities are a little tougher and no shame on them. It's something that I would absolutely do if I was a huge celebrity. Celebrities tend to have tougher riders, I will say. So a rider is when you show up, there's a huge sheet of everything that they want. And some of these sheets are insane, like just such specifics on the type of candy they want, the type of drink they want. They might want some sort of, you know, Korean candy that we don't have in the States that we have to go get our hands on. And sometimes you don't know they're going there until 24 hours before. So you gotta source that stuff. They might want a certain couch, they want certain water. There's all these little things where I would say people on the business side tend to not, I mean, some of them actually just don't have riders at all, or they just care about what water's in the room.

I had a very fascinating conversation once actually at the Wynn with one of the like, oh, Wynn, the like managers of the whales, I would say. Yes.

So like VIP concierge team, private access. Yeah, totally.

And I was like, what's the craziest thing somebody requested? And I'm just remembering this now., and they said that somebody wanted to change the entire HVAC system. Yeah. Like they needed a special air filtration system that you're, look, you're looking at me like, yeah, duh, of course they would.

What? So that, yeah, we have a lot of stuff like that. Usually what that looks like on short notice, Vegas is a different beast. There is not much that they will say no to in Vegas.

So if you want to get you to gamble, change.

Yeah. It's, like it's all a game there where there's a relationship, whereas a normal hotel, they're not necessarily like the, they're not making their bulk of money off of a casino. So, you know, they might not necessarily be able to switch out the HVAC system in like the middle of New York same day. But what they will do is bring out a bunch of humidifiers and air purifiers. And, um, there was a funny story. I, I won't say who it is, but there was somebody in New York that came and had all of the, um, like the Dyson. We had to bring up all these Dyson. Air humidifiers and they ended up taking them all home cuz they love them so much. They're like, just put these on the way and we're gonna take them like for free. Funniest thing ever. Or get, no, everything. I mean, these, these people do pay for everything.

It's not like they're getting everything for free, but there's still a lot for free and lots for free. Everybody loves a deal. Like I don't have that kind of money, but I love a deal more than anything. Like, yeah, I'll sign a big deal, but then I'll save, you know, a couple hundred bucks or get a BOGO and I'll be stoked. Woo. Right. So do you find that your wealthy clients know how much things cost? Or are they like that, that viral Bill Gates clip where he didn't know— has no idea the price of groceries?

Yeah. Bread costs. It's a great video. I actually am reading a book right now. This is, and I am so not a reader, but we went on vacation last week for the first time in 2 years. And I was like, I'm gonna read a book. So we went to Barnes Noble, we bought a book. Mine of course is about the rich and famous and how they charter yachts. It's like this fantasy. Murder mystery story. And within the first couple pages, one of the lines was, rich people fucking love a refund. And it was so fucking word. I think it's so true. That's a bar. So true. That, that line made me howl. Totally personal thing. Some people will price check every single thing and make sure that they're getting the right price, best, you know, discount, all the things, and will want a refund if something's not perfect. Other people, I mean, not that I would ever do this, but you could charge 'em a million bucks. They probably wouldn't notice. But I'm still like, no matter who it is, I want my clients always to be able to price check me. 'Cause then if a competitor ever tries to swoop in, it's like clear as day who's gonna bring you the most value.

Yeah.

And it's not the money, it's the principle.

It's the principle. Yeah. The people, it fires me up so much. I hate the jet industry nowadays. Hotel industry's a little harder to do 'cause you can price check directly online. But with the jet industry nowadays, you can. Like the brokers, what's happened is there's an owner and then there's the client, and in between this person and this person should be me and potentially one broker. That's it. 4 people involved in the transaction. Nowadays we're looking at like 30 people involved in the transaction and add 10% onto every single person.

Yeah, everybody's gotta eat.

So we're like, there'll be people out there that are charging, and some big companies too, $30K jet and they're charging $80,000 for the jet. And these guys are not thinking to price check cuz it's just like somebody they've been working with. I'm like, you're getting hosed. Or it might only be 4 people, but, but that person knows they're used to paying that 60% premium, so they're just gonna charge it. And it's just like such abuse of the system.

I just feel like that's not a great game because people have money, not because they're stupid and they're—

you're gonna get caught at some point and then you're gonna come to me, which is great. That's right.

But before then, do your clients have budgets or they'll just—

yes. Done whatever. Yes. Everybody has a budget. Bill Gates has a budget. Jeff Bezos has a budget. When somebody comes to me and says, I have no budget, huge red flag. Why? Because they have a budget and it's usually way stricter than somebody that comes to me and says, can we try and stay under $200K? Huh. Yeah, tons of purchase anxiety with those people too.

The no-budget people are not usually good people for— so it's a little overcompensating. Yeah, yeah, totally.

I mean, there is the once in a while, you know, it'll be a girlfriend's birthday or something like that and they'll say, hey, you know, like, let's really blow this one out and have a big one. But I'll ask how much and they'll say, okay, like, let's, let's do the $900,000 boat. Let's not do the $3 million a week boat, right? Because you can go— we can spend $50 mil in 2 weeks if you want to. We can find a way to spend that money. But there's going to be a budget. Somebody worth hundreds of millions of dollars still doesn't want to spend $50 mil on a vacation. That's insane.

So yeah, the no budget idea— like, you have— there's a, a pulse check. There's the level set. Yeah, you have to have some general range.

I'm a huge believer that you have to get your financial information out very quickly as well when it comes to these types of purchases. Like, I'm not gonna beat around the bush and not tell you there's a $100K upfront charge. I'm, that's probably within the first 3 lines is what I'm gonna tell you. 'Cause you're either gonna be able to afford it or think that that's insane and then we'll part ways or start working together.

So what's the minimum spend for a client?

Interesting. We've kind of wavered a tiny bit just because we do have some clients that pay us a retainer and then they talk to me like twice a year and they book a $100K trip with their family twice a year and it's great and they really don't need anything else. So that's like an awesome client for me. But we do have clients that are spending, you know, $4 or $5 million a year as well. So it's usually, I would say on average between like the $1 to $3 range.

Do you get tips?

I've never gotten a tip. That would make me so uncomfortable. Oh my gosh. That would make me so uncomfortable. That being said, if anyone wants to send me $100K, always open. But no, no, I would never accept tips. I feel like in our industry it's just not, there's not like a service-based It's, I don't know, it's not, there, the understanding's not like that. Like we work together. It's my job to just, I'm kind of like an employee on retainer. I'm here to make your life easier. I work with a lot of chief of staff and EAs for a lot of these people as well. So I'm just kind of a part of their network. Um, so tipping me would probably be very uncomfortable for all of us.

But you get gifts, like thank you gifts. No, no, no one sent you a thank you gift.

I don't think so. I did.

Of course.

Wait, you don't get one. Have you gotten any— have we gotten any thank you gifts? Nobody sends you guys like flowers or— so interesting. I mean, we've got— I think we got some flowers and stuff when we got engaged from a couple people, but I'm like, I honestly never need gifts or cards or anything from my clients. As long as everybody's happy, that is a gift in itself.

Do you charge differently for ultra high net worth clients? Everybody gets the same.

Everybody gets the same. Yep. Same treatment across the board. Celebrity or— I mean, even if you make half a million dollars a year and you want to spend that on me, that's— you're still going to get the same treatment as somebody that's worth billions.

Love to hear some quick answers from your crazy job. What's a destination that looks amazing on Instagram that you'd never recommend?

I try to push people away from Bali sometimes. I think that there's— if you're doing it really right, but most of my followers are not people that can afford my vacations. So, you know, if they're trying to save a buck and go on a really cool vacation I would not recommend Bali. I think it has to be done right and very expensively.

Yeah. So the, the people that are watching you, it just, it's tale as old as time, like wealth porn sells.

Private access behind the velvet rope these days is like, you're right. It has been a tale as old as time. It feels like it's being reactivated right now. The amount of articles I'm reading that are just travel is becoming sexy again. The travel agent is becoming sexy again. Like all of this industry is kind of having a really big blowup. Um, and I hope that I've had a part in that because I feel like it's, it's really— the last year has really exploded. So hopefully I'm inspiring a lot of people to get into this industry because it's hard, but it's super fun and super rewarding to help people create memories for the rest of their lives.

And you get to experience it yourself. So what's one hotel in the world that most lives up to the hype?

I mean, this is— this one's not even fair, but the Shangri-La in Paris. Was probably the most magical place ever. Now I did get engaged on that trip, so it's almost not, it's just not fair. But that view, we had like the two-story duplex in that suite. The direct view to the Eiffel Tower was one of the coolest rooms I've ever been in. There's also a spot that I will say is like an underrated spot that I've gone to twice this year already in Pittsburgh of all places. It's called Nemacolin. It's where like all the, so many celebrities go here. Tons of like extremely wealthy politicians, businessmen, like everybody loves this spot, but nobody talks about it. It is one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. Like from the second I get in, everything's gluten and dairy free. They've clocked my allergies so well. They are on, like they're touching the tables all the time. They're coming and checking in on you. The service level there is like a 6-star. It's unbelievable, but it's in Pittsburgh. Okay. Pittsburgh. It's weird, but like, okay, Pittsburgh, right? Yeah. So super, super cool spot. What is it called?

Nemacolin. How do you spell that? N-E-M-A-C-O-L-L-I-N, I believe. Nema, Nemacolin. Hello.

Yeah. Interesting spot. What's something that the 1% think is tacky that the 99% think is luxury?

We're on a 3-year cycle right now. So what happens is the super wealthy and the rich and famous will go somewhere. For a year, and then 3 years later that spot will get like just a spiral. So I, I love Lake Como. I think it's great. Unfortunately, if you have gone to Lake Como in the last 2 years— all the Kardashians did all their posting a couple years ago— it is a flood of tourists. And unless you can afford to stay there at nighttime, the day is just a lot. Like, there are thousands and thousands of busses coming in. The streets are packed. The food's starting in some of the areas to get really touristy. It's just like Yeah, I think that unfortunately Instagram, as much as it's a great tool, has kind of ruined a lot of these really great spots, and they become tacky is what I will say.

What's the most expensive room service bill you've ever seen?

For like single day, probably $15,000. For a meal? Yeah, like for a party. Yeah, no, that was— I mean, it was a group of 5, so they had— yeah, between lunch and dinner was $15,000. But I've definitely seen way more at dinner. But also wine, you can get a $20,000 bottle of wine. Like, for some of these people, that is very, very easy. But I think they just got so many dishes again and again and again. It was just a bunch of guys and girls having fun in Vegas and they racked up a good food tab.

Did you see the Acquired style bachelorette?

I did, yeah. And how much do you think that cost? I'd have to have more details on what— I mean, it was a— I was called a big booty jet.

Official terminology, BBJ.

Yeah, so I always call it a BB. It's so funny. I've been on business Boeing jet multiple calls where I've been like, oh, we'll just get a BBL. And Troy has to interrupt me and say, babe, VBJ, VBJ. I made too many jokes and now my vocabulary has changed it to VBL in my head, but it's not. The VBJ, beautiful plane. I don't know if they have ownership on that plane or if that's somebody's jet. In that case, not super expensive. They already own the plane. You're just paying fuel and all that stuff. But if they were to charter that, I mean, So I think that that plane, again, depends on where they're coming from and just how far the journey was. If they owned it, a lot cheaper. But that type of plane, you're looking at at least $500,000. So hell of a, hell of a partnership there for sure.

And you said that there's a lag, like a 3-year lag. Where are rich people hanging out right now?

I mean, I think that Mallorca has been really, really popular. Like, parts of Spain are gonna kind of blow up. I mean, I personally, I've said this a couple times and I get a lot of hate for it, I think that St. Barts is gonna have a couple tough years after this past year. We oversaturated it on social media so hard. I mean, love everybody that was there. It was great. But the social capture of it, everyone is going to spend every last penny they have to potentially go party with Tom Brady or Alex Earle or any of these people, right? They're going to go out. And I think that that's going to cause St. Barts to get a little bit overwhelmed. The boating industry there is not going to change because you have to have so much money to rent a private yacht. Like, you're looking at at least $700,000 to get a good boat out there. But, um, you know, it's gonna overwhelm the clubs.

You mentioned taking a vacation recently. Can you even take a vacation? Like, does it feel like a vacation to you? And where would you go if you were to take another one?

So we, our last vacation before this one was BVI's. Um, we stayed at Ariel Island, magical spot. They grow all the food on land. They have a like rescue circus zebra farm. It's the sweetest, most grounding spot ever. So after Super Bowl 2 years ago, we went there. And since then we haven't taken a vacation. So this was kind of our first one. We still work all day every day, but we just get to do it in a little bit of a nicer spot.

So, and where would you go if you could go on another one?

Our next one, luckily brands and partners seem to be beating us. So like we'll have a bucket list trip we wanna do and then we'll magically get a call from, you know, the Four Seasons or one of these big brands. They're like, hey, we wanna bring you out here. And then luckily we get to experience it. Um, one and only, we know we've been thinking about doing a trip to Rwanda for a while and they've got Gorilla's Nest out there. There. So look, of course they just called and they're like, we'd love to host you. I'm like, awesome, okay. So that's one I think we want to get. Tokyo is on my bucket list for sure, but it looks like I might be flying out there with, um, Fairmont in November, so we might go do that.

What would you tell a hotel front desk if you wanted to get a room upgrade?

Oh, people love this question. Controversial answer. I gave this answer a couple weeks ago and everybody got so mad, like, don't lie. You can lie, it's okay. So for me it's just like lead with confidence, get in there. If a hotel is 95%, if the occupancy rate is 95%, you're not gonna get an upgrade. There's a pretty high chance it's not gonna happen. You know, there's, I think it's one of the Burnout Girls that has one of the best pieces of advice. She hired a fake EA, like she was pretending to be her EA or hired one of her friends, right?

Right. Yeah, definitely.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, do the same thing. Call in, I'm an EA of somebody that's really important. You don't necessarily, you know, NDAs, we can't list right now. They're coming in, is there any chance that you have something for them? If you want to create a little story there, I think that sometimes that can go a long way. Also being super nice. This is same with flights. I've seen this happen a couple times before. Bring little gifts, bring a card, bring some flowers, bring some chocolates. Like if you bring little gifts, sometimes people are They, they have upgrades available. If they have the room, they can make it happen, but you have to make them want to make it happen.

You have to bring them like a Toblerone from the— yeah.

So I have, there was this girl I met on a flight years ago and she brings a little bag of those mini candies on every flight she goes and they upgrade her to first class all the time. No way. They don't do that. I know. I, so I was shocked. I think that that has changed a little bit over the last like year or two, maybe even a little more just because. Is when you're, um, you know, because of all the point systems now, they're upgrading to get those seats full. But there was a huge thing, I think 2022, where a bunch of the elite status members on the airlines complained that people who weren't paying for it or weren't of status were getting moved up. So now they've been a little bit stricter on that. But I remember seeing that girl do it and they fully moved her up and I'm like, I saw that. What did you do? And she's like, I, I bring a bag of candy on every flight with me. So it doesn't work all the time, but it does work sometimes. Life's— life is a game of getting to know people and getting to read people.

So just understand what people want, and usually they can help you get what you want too.

Can you imagine like bringing a small bouquet of flowers?

I say that I'm gonna do it, but now we don't really have that problem. But you know, years ago I'm like, I'm gonna start doing that. I just never remembered to do it. But you can actually try and put in some energy to making people feel good. It seems to go a long way in the hospitality industry.

Okay, let's role play then. So you're— I'm the front desk. And we're calling to get an upgrade. Yeah, ring ring ring. Miss Fernie, how may I help you?

Well, first off, you would have no idea who I am.

Oh, you're at the hotel already?

Am I at the hotel or am I calling as like EA or Pri?

So like, I am—

okay, we can do both if you want. Let's do— okay, call. You could just answer as the— oh, the regular— the one hotel. Yeah, one hotel. You have no idea who I am. Okay, so ready.

The one hotel. Hello, good afternoon. Hi, who is this? Hi, uh, this is Nicole. Awesome.

Hi Nicole, this is Janice calling. Do you have a second to chat?

Um, sure, but how can I direct your call?

Awesome. Um, are you the front desk or is this— is this in-house reservations or am I speaking to a sales line?

Um, I'm just helping to direct the call for the hotel.

Okay, can you connect me to in-house sales please? Okay, one moment. Always go to in-house sales.

Hello, this is in-house sales. Hi, how are you?

Who am I speaking with?

Hi, uh, this is Nicole. Who may I have the pleasure of speaking with?

Nicole's in one spot. Wow, that's great. I just met Nicole from the front. She seems awesome. Great name. So I have a client that's due to arrive in about 45 minutes. Her name is Olivia Ferny, Travel with Livvy. Um, I am just wanting to put a couple things on your radar. Are you guys able to bring in a couple snacks and some waters or connect me with concierge to help set that up? She's a VIP guest.

Yeah, we could definitely, um, depending on the snacks, get over to food and beverage and— perfect—

have room service handle that. So I'm actually just gonna have them sent— she's very particular about what's in the room, so I'm gonna have those gifts sent over to the hotel. If you guys could just have concierge put it in the room. Um, if you're able to, if you could send me over the best email to get a last-minute ride or two as well for the remainder of her stay, that'd be great. Um, and yeah, if you guys happen to have any upgrades— she's had an incredibly long flight and I know she's really excited to try out the hotel— that'd be really appreciated.

Appreciated. Presidential Suite.

Awesome, thank you. All right, thanks so much, Nicole. Great chatting. She'll be there shortly. That was easy. That's how I would do it. Always go to sales. General reservations isn't the front desk, so you're talking to somebody that might be outsourced in a different country. So usually you have to try and get to on-site or, um, in-house sales. Sorry. And those people only work 9 to 5, so you can't do that at night either.

Okay. So you've actually done this and it's worked? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is, I mean, this, this has worked. Troy, Troy's done it for me multiple times. So it is. Yeah. Before I was Travel with Livvy, Troy, I mean, when we had like 10,000 followers, Troy would try and pull it off and they'd be like, can I see the account? And he's like, no, you can't.

So what's the best way if somebody is a smaller influencer to try and get a hookup at a hotel?

I really believe that in-person networking is huge for this. This. If you live in Miami, New York, LA, maybe not even a major city, there's gonna be 5-star hotels within driving distance for anybody for the most part. Go get your butt down there and go start shaking some hands. You might not be able to get a, you know, one-on-one with a GM right away, but when you come by and again, bring little gifts, bring cards, say hi, introduce yourself, become a familiar face, you eventually will be able to get interviews with the right people who can connect you to marketing. A lot of the marketing teams are on a global scale. Um,, you know, things like Four Seasons and Ritz are actually privately owned, a lot of the, um, actual resorts. But marketing sits at the higher tier usually. So you just have to start to get to know people and network like it's 2000s. Get off your phone, stop DMing these hotels and asking for free stays and like go find who you need to actually talk to and make eye contact. Give 'em a good shake and get yourself in the door. It takes time, but it, it will add up.

What do you say though?

I think. Just making yourself known of exactly what you wanna do. You don't have to like beat around the bush. Just say you're an aspiring influencer. I absolutely love the brand. Here's the 3 things that I really enjoy about the brand and why we'd be a good fit. Like you're, you're working, this is a job. It's not just like I, we make fun of influencers cuz some people do run around like it's a fluffy thing and it is definitely a really fun job, but go act like you're, you know, asking for an actual job cuz there is an exchange of services or even an exchange of money here. So you should act like it. So go in and just make yourself known.

So planning all of these 6-figure, 7-figure vacations, does that warp your relationship with money?

Oh, hell yes. Oh my gosh. I have become so out of touch sometimes. I really have to touch grass. I, um, I think I've just— hearing certain numbers don't shock me. I remember when I started doing this, like I didn't know what a private jet was when I moved to Miami. I had no idea that that was a mode of transportation. I thought that the government was the only people that were allowed to take the small planes I see in the sky. Turns out lots of people do it. And now, you know, hearing that something costs $3 million doesn't faze me and as much as it used to. But I think that's also a good thing for the line of work that I'm in because I shouldn't be sitting there looking at a client who's asking to spend that kind of money being like, I'm like, whoo, are you sure you wanna do that? That's not a great look. So I think the, I'm getting like acclimatized to the wealth is what I'll say.

You have a very good poker face.

Thank you. Trying.

No, the first time I, uh, I don't know if I've ever said this, but yeah, the first time I went on a jet, I went to the bathroom and I was like, oh, you don't have a toilet here. That's fine. I get that. It's a small plane. I didn't understand, like you lift up the thing and you look. Yeah. I thought it was a seat. I thought it was a seat. I just thought so. I just thought that too.

You go in and you start closing and you're looking for the—

It's a sink and you wash your hands and then you hold your pee pee.

And you hold your pee pee. My stepmom actually was on a plane one time for work years ago and she said they had an extra person last minute and she had to sit on the toilet seat the whole time. She's like, nobody better have to pee. She said it was fine. They just kept the door open. She just felt a little separated from everybody.

So you didn't grow up with a lot of money?

Two teacher parents, great life. Like we had a white picket fence, little suburbia. I lived on a, I called it a lollipop growing up, but it was a cul-de-sac. I recently learned that word. And, uh, just like small country town. We grew up tipping cows at high school parties and that was life. It was great. But it was definitely, yeah, very different than what life is now.

Has your experiences made you want to be a billionaire?

I wouldn't say that I necessarily wanna be a billionaire. I think that that's an extreme amount of wealth. Um, awesome if it happens, but I think I just want enough money to be able to travel the way that I want to and be able to take care of my family.

Is there a lesson or a money lesson that you've learned working so up close and personal with the ultra wealthy?

I wouldn't say so much lessons. I think a lot of people believe that I have integration into their financials, which is just not the case. I, I definitely don't know what any of them do on that side of things other than the little bits and pieces I, I hear. But what I have gotten that's been really awesome personally is just access to a lot of new things. Um, a client connected me to an amazing firm that's now handling all of my wealth and they've been doing a really, really great job. And, um, yeah, just being, you know, getting access to stuff pre-IPO and getting access to new startups and, you know, Maggie Sellers, Hot Smart Rich, I did a podcast with her and she's brought me me a lot of really cool opportunities. Keyback is my wealth management fund and they've been spectacular. But I don't pretend to know the first thing about finances. I think all of it scares me and is very overwhelming. And I think you can only be so good at so many things in life. So I try and leave it to the professionals. And that's definitely something that I've, I've learned working with this kind of group is that there's people that are good for everything.

So find the best people and give them their money.

And like a soft lesson that you've encountered from just seeing how people relate to money or the importance of money?

That's a tough question. I think, I think something that I've learned that I do go back and forth with, with this group is that money is not everything. It's really, really great and it can bring you a lot of happiness, but at the end of the day, if you don't have good relationships with your people, then your relationship with money doesn't really matter. You can be rich and depressed, but you're still depressed. And not saying that any of my clients are, a lot of them have amazing relationships with, with wealth and with their families, especially my current group of clients. But you know, over the last year of working with all these different types of people, you see a lot of very interesting relationships with money and its priority in people's lives. And I think it's made me take a step back and kind of think about all the things that are important to me and make changes.

Yeah. Money fixes money problems.

Money fixes money problems. Correct. Yeah, you just got engaged.

I did. Congratulations, you guys.

Are you doing a destination wedding? Oh my gosh, question of the year, question of the year. I have no idea. We're on a sprint right now. We have like a 5-year business plan that we're really, really kind of gunning for, so our focus and priority is that and our clients right now. I think we'll see in like a year. I'm thinking I'm gonna start planning. I just really want to enjoy the process, and right now I'm enjoying work so much that I just don't have time to plan a wedding. So we'll see where we end up. We're going back and forth between like maybe Hawaii, maybe Vegas, just because it's like our stomping grounds. Maybe Canada, maybe we'll go back home. We'll see. A lot of options.

So you're saying you're sprinting on a business plan together, you guys work together and sleep together. So how do you keep your relationship defined in those areas? Or what are the rules for the boundaries around work?

And we probably should work on that a little bit more. There's not many. We both are so attached to this job and everything that we do, and it brings us so much joy that when we go down for dinner and we're like, let's leave our phones, the first thing we do is mention what's going on, what this client wants, how we're gonna get this done, what the new platform's looking like, how far along development is. There's just like It's like we can't help it. It's so funny listening to our dinner conversations cuz we'll try and deviate max 3 minutes. You got 3 minutes on something funny a friend said the other day and we're going right back into work. But until that stop starts making us unhappy, then I think it'll become a, a, you know, a pro— when it makes us unhappy, it'll become a problem. But for now, we both love talking about it and it fuels our relationship. So it's good right now. We'll see in 5 years. Are you talking about a prenup? Will definitely have a prenup for sure. Yeah, we, I have, we've really talked about it a little bit.

We both, I think we both agree. I'm sorry to speak for both of us here, but I think we both agree that a prenup's super important. Why do you think that is? Um, it's just, it's just life. I think that paperwork is very important. I am one of those people that just has seen a million things go wrong a million times. I have divorced parents and God forbid that ever happens. Happens to us. I think we're gonna have a very long, successful, happy marriage with lots of beautiful little dogs and kids. Um, but you know, it's just something that you have to write on paper. I think it's also important, as you just said, divine— defining roles and relationships when it comes to work. I think a prenup when you work together specifically is very important so that we understand our roles in the business and what's gonna happen long-term. And you know, if there's ever a sale of assets and you know, as things continue to grow, hopefully one day we'll get there. Make a ton of money together, but I want to make sure that those pieces are all put in place just in case so that I know what I'm striving for, and same for him.

Yeah, and you have a prenup regardless. It's the States.

Yeah, it doesn't need to— it doesn't need to be a super negative thing. I think people are very weird to talk about it, but, um, business, baby.

Put it on paper. That's right. So we end all of our episodes, Liv, by asking our guests for a tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. So what's one final travel hack that people can use when they're planning a trip at any price point?

It's always the best when everybody like, what's the everyday answer? I'm like, well, if you take this jet instead of this one, you could potentially save 10%.

Do the BBJ instead of the BBL.

Got it. I mean, so let's shoulder seasons, travel on shoulder seasons. Everybody, I think for the most part, I grew up with parents that were teachers, right? So we had our summers off, which made traveling in not busy times very difficult. We had March break or we had summertime. And everybody's traveling. If you're somebody that works a 9 to 5 all year round, you have weekends off. Plan your PTO on a time when like St. Barts isn't gonna be insane. Save the money and go to St. Barts in like September, or you know, go to Bora Bora on off-season just because it's, you know, you also can shoulder off-season is usually off-season because it's rainy in a lot of those places, but you might be able to get a really nice date in October right before it starts raining. It'll save you some money. So just. Watch the calendars. ChatGPT is a great tool nowadays. Get online, figure out when those shoulder seasons are, and you'll save some money.

So decide where you want to go first.

I would say, say open to that. Yeah, I would screw the date if you can. Just find like your top 5 spots that you really want to go, and also just your priorities too. If you're like, I don't care where we go, but I want a beach and I want really good food, Use those as kind of your starting pillars and your verticals and, and move down. Then figure out shoulder seasons for those types of resorts and then lock in your date.

And what if I'm like, I must work with Liv. What's the minimum? Like if I call you, ugh, just give me a call.

We'll talk about it, but it is $100K upfront, so just be prepared.