The numbers come first. Top Tier Travel now asks clients to pay a $100,000 annual fee and spend at least $1 million on travel each year.
The firm’s shift reflects a simple business lesson: the richest clients can be easier to serve than those reaching for elite lifestyles without the same financial cushion. Ferney said millionaires were harder because they wanted to spend like billionaires, then sometimes regretted it.
Ferney, a 25-year-old Canadian luxury travel specialist, said the top end of her client base is 'completely amazing to work with' because there is no friction from buyer’s remorse. She said the lower end of the wealth bell curve was 'really, really difficult,' while the middle was 'a little bit easier.'
That difference helped shape how Top Tier Travel operates. Ferney said the business once worked like a conventional travel agency and earned 8% to 12% on trips. As her social media following grew, the company moved to a narrower model with a 'payment gate' rather than trying to serve everyone.
Ferney said some clients come from seven generations of wealth and repeat the same family trips every year. Others work in crypto and call when the market is doing well to plan trips to Ibiza where they can spend 'a couple million dollars really quickly.'
She also said her social videos have helped draw attention from wealthy families and their children. Those younger clients, she said, often want items with scarcity value, including pieces they cannot buy directly from Hermès anymore, or 'the bag that Cardi B got from Chanel that no one can get their hands on.'
Ferney said her content can also make wealthy families feel understood. She cited an Instagram post in which she reenacted calling a CEO to say his son lost $900,000 gambling on the World Cup.
The business case is clear: luxury service gets easier when clients have the balance sheet to match their tastes. That is where free enterprise rewards clarity and punishes wishful thinking. In this market, the taxpayer is not footing the bill, but the discipline is the same: cash, not status, decides who gets served and how well.
Top Tier may also be positioning itself for the Great Wealth Transfer, which Ferney said will move $124 trillion as baby boomers hand assets to younger generations. Her pitch is that her firm will be ahead of peers because it is already learning how young elites spend.
