The travel industry has a pricing problem and it is not the one most people think. The problem is not that things are too expensive. It is that nobody is honest about what they are paying for. This is especially true of the word "concierge," which has been stretched so far that it now means everything and nothing.
What a good concierge actually does
A good concierge is a person who has been to the place recently, knows the operators personally, can get you into dinners at a day's notice, and who will tell you honestly when something is overrated. You cannot automate this. You cannot replace it with an AI chat widget. You can only employ humans who travel a lot and pay them fairly.
At Fedalom our concierges are paid a real salary — not commission on what they push you toward. That single structural fact is the difference between someone who recommends a hotel because it is the right hotel and someone who recommends it because it pays a 15% kickback.
So what does it cost
For a standard concierge-built itinerary at Fedalom, we charge a flat planning fee starting at ₵180 for short trips, up to ₵650 for complex multi-country routes. This replaces the hidden commissions most agencies rely on. You see the fee up front. You see the underlying hotel, flight, and tour prices at their real rate, not marked up. If you find any component cheaper elsewhere within 24 hours we match it or refund the difference.
Transparent pricing is not a feature. It is a precondition for being trusted with anyone's holiday.
When it is worth it and when it is not
If you are doing a weekend in Paris, you do not need a concierge. If you are doing two weeks across three countries with specific requirements — dietary, accessibility, kids, older parents, particular interests — you almost certainly do. Our test is simple: if the planning is going to take you more than eight hours of your own time, the fee is already saving you money at any normal hourly rate.
We would rather tell you to book it yourself than sell you something you do not need. That is the position a transparent fee model lets us take.
