How the journal works.

Our planner — we call her Alba — is trained on two things: every essay our editors have published, and the live inventory of Expedia Group's 2M+ stays and 700+ airlines. She's not scraping web reviews. She's reading our own editorial archive.

You describe the trip you want — "a quiet week somewhere warm in May, under $4k for two" — and she builds a full draft: stays, flights, experiences, a day-by-day route. Every stay has been slept in by an editor. Every flight is priced live.

You can edit anything she proposes. You can ask for alternatives. Nothing is booked until you confirm, and most stays have free cancellation.

Expedia Group does. When you hit Reserve, you're booking directly with Expedia's inventory via our Partnerize affiliate integration. Your card is charged by Expedia, your confirmation email is from Expedia, your cancellation terms are Expedia's.

destination.com never holds your payment info. We earn a commission when the booking completes — that's how we keep the journal ad-light and independent.

Cancellations go through Expedia (or the partner you booked with). Log in to the email account you used to book — your confirmation from Expedia has a Manage booking link that lets you cancel, change dates, or request a refund.

Most of our editor-picked stays include free cancellation up to 24–48 hours before check-in. We flag the cancellation policy on every stay card before you book.

Never. The price you see is the price Expedia charges — no markup, no surcharge from us. Our revenue is the commission Expedia pays us when a booking completes, which comes out of their margin, not yours.

No. Not now, not ever. Every property on the site was chosen editorially: an editor stayed there, paid the bill, and filed notes. If a property doesn't hold up, we remove it.

The only commercial relationship in play is the Expedia affiliate commission, which is identical across properties. A hotel cannot buy a kind word.

Yes, within Expedia's rules. Date changes, room upgrades, and traveller name corrections go through the Expedia Manage booking flow. For anything complicated — connecting flights across airlines, re-routing around a cancelled leg — email concierge@destination.com and a real editor will take it from there.

You can't book award flights directly on destination.com — miles redemption lives with each airline's own system. What we do is flag when a paid fare is a bad value versus the miles price (our Points & Miles column does this every week) and link through to the relevant airline portal.

If you want help finding the right redemption, the Dispatch newsletter covers sweet spots and transfer bonuses every Thursday.

The Dispatch newsletter is free forever. Dispatch+ (optional, $6/month) adds: the full archive search, Alba planner priority during peak hours, early access to seat sales our editors spot, and the monthly long-form cover feature six weeks before public release.

Cancel anytime. No retention calls, no “account specialists.” Just a button in your account settings.

Less than you'd expect. We store your email if you subscribe to the Dispatch; we use Google Analytics to see which pages get read; we set an Expedia affiliate cookie when you click through to book so commission gets attributed correctly. That's it. Full detail in the privacy policy.

Three ways: chat with Alba for instant answers (bottom-right on any page); email concierge@destination.com for anything complicated (real editor, four-hour response); or phone +1 (415) 555-0199 if you're mid-trip and something's gone wrong — that line goes to a human, not a menu tree.