No sales VP has asked us any of these, because no company has run an incentive trip through RetreatBird. These are the questions the offer has to survive, written out and answered as if you had.
What should we budget per winner?+
At the middle of our published rates, a winner who brings a partner costs $924 for 3 nights of venue — $558 at the simpler end and $1,578 higher up. A winner travelling alone is half of that: $462 in the middle. Those come from the 23 published rates at the 23 venues that state they can take 12 people. Add flights, which we do not price, plus taxes, transfers and activities, and our flat fee.
That is far less per winner than our programme is benchmarked at. Is this a downgrade?+
It is a different product, and you should decide that on purpose rather than discover it. These are small retreat centres, not beach resorts with a ballroom, so the per-winner number is lower because the trip is smaller and quieter — a whole place to yourselves, food, space, and nothing produced. If the reward your winners are chasing is a resort programme with a gala, the right move is to spend that budget with an incentive house, and we would rather say so here than after you have sent a brief.
We have 25 winners plus partners. Can you handle 50 people?+
Yes — send it. What you can browse on this site today is the part that is already listed, and at 50 people we go and source the rest, which is the normal way this works for a group that size. We read venues' own sites, keep only the ones that put a number in writing that covers your party, ask them about your dates, and the plan comes back with what each of them said. The plan also tells you which venues were already on the marketplace and which we approached for you, so you always know which is which.
Do you book the flights?+
No. No group air contracts, no ticketing, no seat changes, no schedule watching. You book flights yourselves or through whoever handles your corporate travel. The plan we write assumes that and leaves the flight line to you rather than filling it with an average we cannot point at.
Is our money protected if the venue fails?+
Not by us. We hold no bonding, no escrow and no supplier-failure insurance, which is exactly why we never take your travel money. You contract and pay the venue directly, so whatever protection exists comes from that contract and from your own insurance — not from us. If your finance team requires protected client funds, you need a bonded operator, and we will say so rather than talk you round it.
Who does someone reach at 3am if something goes wrong on the trip?+
The venue, because the venue is who you contracted with and who is on site. We do not operate a 24/7 emergency line and we do not run a duty-of-care protocol for employees abroad. If your travel policy requires one, it has to come from your own provider or insurer, and we will write the plan to sit alongside it.
Can you run the awards night, the announcement and the gifting?+
No production, no staging, no AV, no scripts, no branded gifts. What we can do is put the venue side in writing: whether there is a private dining room, whether the venue states a workshop or meeting space, and what the venue quotes for a private dinner when we ask it. If the centrepiece of the trip is a produced awards show, hire someone who produces those.
Can we have the whole place to ourselves?+
Sometimes, and we will not pretend it is the default. 7 of our 111 venues state whole-venue hire in their own words — among the 23 that fit a party of 12, 2 do. For every other venue it is a question we ask the operator when your brief arrives, and the plan prints what they said, including no and including silence.
Have you ever run an incentive trip?+
No. Not one, for anybody. There are no case studies, no client logos, no testimonials and no ratings on this site, and none will appear that were not real. What exists is a catalogue built by reading venues' own websites, published prices you can check, and a plan format published in full — judge the work, since there is no track record to judge.
Is there a call?+
No, and not as a next step either. Everything is written, which means you can forward it, compare it, and get it approved internally without repeating a conversation — and every commitment is a sentence someone can point at later. Vendors who keep their pricing behind a sales conversation are charging you an hour for a number; ours is on this page. Reply to the email and you get a written answer.
What do you charge, and when?+
The plan is free and yours to keep whether or not you book. If you want us to run the booking, we agree a flat fee in writing before anything is reserved, and it appears as its own line on the same budget as the venue. Never a percentage of your spend: a planner paid on a percentage has a reason to want your trip to cost more. We have not printed an amount because one has not been set, and inventing a range to fill the gap would be the same trick as inventing a review.
