Stop Calling Amex: The Greenwich Travel Advisor Families Are Using Instead

Stop calling Amex or your credit card company to plan your travel. Call a person instead — specifically, Jamie Leahy, the luxury travel advisor Greenwich families have started using instead of their card's concierge line.

Here's what changed my mind about her. With a credit card travel line, you get a different person every call, and nothing about the experience feels personal. I assumed a real advisor like Jamie came with a hefty fee on top of that. I was wrong, and the reason surprised me enough that I wanted to write about it.

Same room. Same rate. You just get a person instead of a phone tree.

For the hotel bookings Jamie handles through her preferred relationships, she explained it to me plainly: she's paid on the back end by the properties themselves, not by adding a fee or markup onto what you pay. Same room. Same rate. You just get a person instead of a phone tree.

What changes is everything that shows up once you're there. Depending on the property and availability, that can mean a hotel credit for dining or the spa, a room upgrade at check-in, daily breakfast, and early check-in or late checkout — the kind of things a call center can't offer because no one on the other end actually knows the hotel.

She'll also build the itinerary around the hotel instead of leaving you with a beautiful room and fifteen open browser tabs trying to figure out what everyone should do that afternoon.

That's the real difference. You're not re-explaining your family to a new person every time you call. You have one person who knows where you're going, what your kids will actually enjoy, how you like to travel, and which experiences are worth building the whole trip around.

And if you'd rather skip the introductory phone call entirely, you can just DM her.

If that doesn't make you want her on speed dial, here are some of the trips Greenwich families are putting on her radar right now.

1. Paris, but properly — Best for: Mother and daughter. Private shopping appointments. A custom perfume made to her taste. An afternoon making macarons with a French chef. Dinner with the Eiffel Tower in the window. Ten and up is the sweet spot. This is Paris with enough special access to make it feel completely different from simply booking a hotel and wandering around Saint-Germain.

2. Sport, then everything around it — Best for: Father and son. Start with the thing he already cares about. An NFL game abroad in fall or winter, then wrap real sightseeing and experiences around it. Think a motorcycle sidecar tour through the city or even a custom sneaker session with a fashion brand, done in your hotel room. The game gets him excited about the trip. Everything around it becomes the part you remember together.

3. Wimbledon, like a royal — Best for: The tennis family. Premium seats, car service to and from the grounds and the hotel that makes the entire week feel effortless. If tennis is already part of your family life, this is the trip your kids may still be talking about at thirty.

4. Formula One in Monaco — Best for: The car obsessed. The race everyone says they are going to attend one day. Done properly, it is about far more than the ticket. Where you watch matters. Where you stay matters. How you get around Monaco that weekend matters. Build the vantage point, hotel and entire weekend correctly and it becomes one of those trips that is hard to top. Excellent as a father-son trip, but equally good for a full group.

5. Ferrari and the Modena racetrack, Italy — Museum first. Then the track. Then the car itself for a solo run. There is no version of this your son forgets. For the family with a serious car person, Modena is one of those destinations where the experience itself becomes the souvenir.

6. Porsche through the fjords, Norway — The ultimate driving trip. Switchbacks. Water. Fjords. Huge views. Very little traffic. For the family that would rather be behind the wheel than on a beach, this is the one. The road is the itinerary.

7. Your Mamma Mia moment, Greece — Boutique shopping. Beach clubs worth taking the boat to. Private yacht days. Long lunches. Island sunsets. Then build spa time directly into the itinerary so it actually happens. This works beautifully as a mother-daughter trip or for the entire family. The point is not seeing the most islands possible. It is doing Greece in a way that actually feels like Greece.

8. Into the wild in Alaska — Best for: Teenagers. Brown bears at close range. Salmon in remote rivers. Glaciers by helicopter. Quiet fjords by paddle. Halibut off the boat. This is Alaska in a way almost nobody you know has seen it, and it is especially good for teenagers who have aged out of vacations built around kids' clubs and pool slides. Give them something that feels like a real adventure instead.

9. Ultra-luxury skiing with the family — Best for: Winter break. The mountains. The chalets. The ski-in, ski-out addresses that book out a year ahead. If winter break is the trip you plan everything else around, start this one now. The right chalet, room configuration and location disappear much earlier than most families realize. This is not the trip to start planning in December.

10. Castles, by Land Rover — Scotland and the Celtic Roads. Ancient castles. Dramatic coastline. Highland distilleries. Tiny villages you are not finding on a group tour. You drive through Scotland rather than simply moving between hotels. Every bend gives you another story. For a family that likes history, scenery, beautiful hotels and a little adventure, this may be the sleeper trip of the list.

The real luxury is having one person handle it. Yes, the upgrades and hotel credits are nice. But the bigger luxury is not spending six weeks figuring out whether the hotel is actually in the right location, which Wimbledon seats are worth it, whether the private yacht company is legitimate, which ski chalet works for your family, or what to do with a teenager in Paris after day two.

Jamie already knows the who, what and where. You have an actual person you can call, text or DM. And she takes it from there.