When a luxury house wants to move product, it doesn't slash prices, it adds a gift with purchase. That's the whole philosophy behind how I run promotions: we look at ourselves like a Louis Vuitton or a Chanel. They'll give you extra. They will not tell you they're on sale. A discount teaches clients your price was negotiable; a gift teaches them your brand is generous.
“If you just price your trips one hundred dollars more, you could give away fifty dollars in gifts.”
The mechanics
- Monthly promo one-pagers: your story, why you, and this month's gifts, a rhythm your audience learns to watch for.
- Tiered bonuses: book one trip, get this; book two, get more. The second tier quietly sells multi-trip clients.
- Declining bonuses: six gifts if you book in the first two days, three after. Watch what a deadline with shrinking rewards does to decision speed.
- The math that makes it free: price the trip $100 higher and give away $50 in gifts. The client experiences generosity; the P&L experiences nothing.
Claire's own numbers
The framework, step by step
- 1
Monthly promo one-pagers
your story, why you, and this month's gifts, a rhythm your audience learns to watch for.
- 2
Tiered bonuses
book one trip, get this; book two, get more. The second tier quietly sells multi-trip clients.
- 3
Declining bonuses
six gifts if you book in the first two days, three after. Watch what a deadline with shrinking rewards does to decision speed.
- 4
The math that makes it free
price the trip $100 higher and give away $50 in gifts. The client experiences generosity; the P&L experiences nothing.
Claire's own framework from this essay, in the order she teaches it.
Source: Claire B. Soares, from her own travel business and live trainings.
Give gifts people actually use
Practical beats clever every time: the travel book they display, the speaker they pack, the massage that appears mid-trip already paid for. My single best-performing perk cost about a hundred dollars a head: dinner with the founder. Dozens of clients flew to my city for it, because access is the one gift luxury clients can't buy elsewhere. Success has clues: when a promotion works, repeat it.
Common Questions
How do luxury brands create urgency without discounting?
With gifts attached to a real deadline. A discount teaches clients your price was negotiable; a gift teaches them your brand is generous, which is the impression luxury depends on.
What are declining bonuses?
A promotion where the number of gifts shrinks as the booking window progresses, for example six gifts in the first two days and three after. The deadline is real and the reward visibly decreases.
What gifts work best for travel clients?
Practical ones they will actually use: the travel book they display, the speaker they pack, the massage delivered mid-trip. Claire's highest-performing perk was dinner with the founder.
Written By
Claire B. Soares
Claire B. Soares is the founder of Travel AI University, a 6x Condé Nast Traveler Top Travel Specialist, and a Certified AI Consultant with a B.S. in Computer Science. A top 10% enterprise sales executive, she sold $3.4B+ in enterprise software to Google, Microsoft, IBM, Boeing, the federal government, and the DoD, then built $16M+ in luxury travel sales.
About Claire
