Travel agents reveal the insane demands of their 1% clients

When a wealthy client found the feng-shui in her hotel suite in the French Alps wanting, Brian Pentek, founder of the travel agency LuxeLife Travel was given an unusual task: Fly in her interior designer and accompanying decor and fix it.

Not only did this episode of extreme makeover hotel edition cost the client $100,000, Pentek had to get permission from the hotel’s GM, who demanded that the suite be returned to its original state at the end of the ski sojourn.

“The biggest lesson I learned is that basically anything is possible as long as the client is willing to pay for it,” Pentek told The Post.

Rather than being made obsolete by online booking tech, travel agents have instead become facilitators to some of the most outrageous requests of the superrich.

And, like a trusted butler, they know all of their secrets.

“I had a company president as a client for many years,” said Deborah Izenberg, a Houston-based travel agent.

“It was a big account, and I booked travel for his family for years. He always had me book he and his wife in first class. One day, he called with a new request: He asked me to also book a ticket for a woman who was clearly not his wife. She had a different name, and I’d heard rumors from people in his circle that she was his mistress. Anyway, he wanted her on the same flight — but not in first class. In fact, he had me put her in the last row of coach!”

Izenberg adds that not only did the wife and lover share a flight but also a hotel.

“He had me book the penthouse suite for him and his wife, and I was instructed to put the mistress in the cheapest, lowest floor room possible. He had me do this several times, always putting his mistress’s travel expenses on the company credit card, before he was finally caught,” she says.

Not only are the love lives of the 1% complicated, so are their most mundane moments, according to Jeremy Clubb, founder of Rainforest Cruises.

“We recently had the misfortune of planning a South American vacation for one of the world’s richest — and possibly most pretentious — women,” he said. “It involved 100-plus daily WhatsApp messages and 19-hour days for three months.”

Clubb’s client, an Indonesian woman traveling with her family and entourage, was so discerning it was concerning. Clubb had to provide mineral water of a specific pH level and make sure every room where she stayed had a minimum of 12 rugs. Her feet couldn’t touch the bare floor. His client also insisted on receiving fresh flowers daily. Furthermore they had to be dyed to match her outfit. Fortunately, she had her wardrobe planned out in advance. There was only one hiccup on her $250,000 trip: The presidential suite at a hotel she had her sights set on was already booked. But even that was more of a speed bump than a road block. She simply paid the occupying guests off to stay elsewhere. Worst of all, Clubb reckons he only made $25 an hour planning that trip.

Sometimes, however, it’s not a matter of money, it’s a matter of time. Casey Halloran once had a client, a royal family member from the Middle East, insist that the hotel he rented out operate on his home time zone — which was 10 hours ahead — for his entire vacation. That meant eating meals at odd times and opening the spa before the crack of dawn.

“Initially, there were grumblings,” says the founder of Costa Rican Luxury Vacations. “But this fellow is a legendary tipper, so I think the attitudes changed quickly.”

His client, who he describes as “a dream” since he had no budget, even managed to get shops in town to open after hours so his wife could shop at her convenience. According to Halloran, as long as the client isn’t unpleasant while they’re making these tyrannical requests, and they’re willing to pay for them, it’s not obnoxious. He does have a pet peeve, however. “The worst is the old ‘Do you know who I am?’ treatment.”

Tim Roney is all too familiar with this treatment. His company, Lacure Villas, regularly books villas for celebrities, heads of states and executives. But it’s not always a glamorous affair.

“We have a staffer who’s permanently scarred, psychologically, from the ordeal we went through trying to install bidets in a villa for a Saudi royal family in Paris last summer,” says Roney.

He’ll also never forget the Portugal vacation he planned for a well-known celebrity.

“We were required to arrange four humidifiers in the master bedroom, running 24 hours a day,” recalls Roney. But that’s not the wildest part. The A-lister also wanted to go dog-sledding — an activity Portugal isn’t exactly known for — and during their absurd excursion, they wanted to “accidentally” stumble upon a yurt. Despite how bizarre their ideal day was, Roney and his team made it happen.

“We even added a chandelier to the yurt to make it more luxurious,” he says.

Still, drumming up sled dogs and yurts in Portugal is child’s play compared to negotiating with Amazonian tribes and trying to train a parrot to deliver a diamond ring — two tasks that travel planner Christen Thomas had to check off her list in March 2022. Her clients, a wealthy couple from New York, wanted to rekindle their romance in a remote part of the jungle in Brazil. Their budget? $150,000. “Coordinating with local tribes was a crucial element of the plan,” says Thomas, founder of Travel Wander Grow. “We collaborated with an experienced liaison who was fluent in the tribal language to effectively communicate our intentions and obtain their consent.”

Of course, she also had to be cognizant of killer snakes, spiders and jaguars — the cats, not the cars.

In the end, no one lost any limbs. In fact, with the help of the parrot the couple got engaged.