How to Choose a Private Concierge

Why the websites do not help

Every firm in this trade says the same words. Bespoke. Seamless. Unrivalled access. Discreet. The copy is interchangeable because it costs nothing to write, so it tells you nothing.

What does tell you something is how a firm answers a direct question. Below are six, with what a good answer and a bad answer sound like. They work on any firm, in any country. The licence question at the end is specific to Greece.

Ask who they know by name

Not which companies they work with. Which people, in the specific place you have chosen.

A firm working from a supplier list answers with companies — the names of villa agencies, charter companies, transfer operators. A firm with relationships answers with a person: who owns the house, who runs the boat, who is in the kitchen.

The reason this works is that a list can be bought and a relationship cannot. Anybody can sign up to a booking platform in a week. Knowing the owner of a particular estate on Paros takes years, and it is the thing you are actually paying for.

Follow it with a narrower question: who do they know on the island you have picked, in the week you have picked. Vagueness here is the answer.

Ask who answers in August, and whether they stay

The value of a good firm is continuity — one person who knows what you asked for and is still there when it matters.

So ask who will be at the other end of the phone in the second week of August. Then ask whether it is the person you are speaking to now. In a lot of firms it is not. You are sold by a senior person and handed to a seasonal coordinator who started in May.

Neither arrangement is wrong, but you should know which you are buying, because it determines whether you explain yourself once or three times.

Ask how they are paid

There are three honest models.

A fee. You pay the firm for its work. Nothing is hidden, and the firm has no reason to prefer one supplier over another.

A commission from suppliers. You pay the firm nothing. The house, the boat or the advisor pays it out of what you pay them. This is a normal and long-established arrangement in travel. The thing to understand is that it gives the firm an interest in which supplier you end up with.

Both. A fee for the work, and commission on some of what it arranges.

All three are legitimate. What matters is that the model is stated plainly, in writing, before anything begins. A firm on commission should also tell you what it earns on a particular booking, if you ask.

A firm that will not answer this question has answered it.

Ask what happens when a plan fails

Greece has two features that break plans, and both are seasonal.

The first is scarcity. Between mid-July and the end of August, the houses and boats people ask for by name are committed months ahead, often to the same families who had them the year before.

The second is weather. The meltemi is a strong northerly wind across the Aegean. Its season runs from May to September and it blows hardest from mid-July to mid-August, sometimes for several days at a time. When it is up, ferries get cancelled and ports get closed: on 31 July 2026, Greek authorities suspended all departures from Rafina and Lavrio because conditions were judged unsafe.

So ask the specific question. What would you do if the estate fell through in the second week of August, or if the crossing closed on the day we were meant to move islands?

A firm with depth answers with what it has actually done — the house it moved a family to, the flight it put them on instead. A firm without it answers that this rarely happens.

Ask what they turn down

A firm that will take on anything is doing very little of it well.

Reputable firms decline whole categories: property purchases, legal advice, tax advice, residency applications, financial matters. Those are regulated professions and a concierge holds none of those licences.

Many firms also decline briefs below a certain size, because understanding what somebody wants costs the same whether the trip is one dinner or three weeks. That is a commercial judgement, and firms differ on where the line sits.

Ask what they turn away, and why. The answer tells you whether the firm has thought about what it is for.

Ask to see the licence

In Greece this is a checkable fact rather than a matter of judgement.

A company selling travel services in Greece is a tourist office in law, regulated under Law 393/1976. It has to notify the Ministry of Tourism’s regional service, satisfy Article 6, hold a Special Operating Sign, and lodge a €5,000 guarantee to the Greek State for 5 years.

The word “concierge” is not regulated. That licence is. So ask for it, and treat hesitation as the answer — the cost of holding one is low enough that not holding one means something.

Membership of HATTA, the trade association founded in 1927 with around 1,500 member agencies, shows a firm trades openly. It is not a substitute for the licence, and neither is an award.

If any of the vocabulary here is unfamiliar, start with what a private concierge is.