Down the rabbit hole, head past royal canvases and weighty drapes, and land upright inside Windsor Castle at Queen Elizabeth II’s exclusive 90^th birthday celebrations. Next, enter another of the royals’ stomping grounds and blend in with the Gothic mahogany furniture and alpine arch ceilings at the iconic Cliveden House. Watch how Jim Carter, in the masque of Mr Carson from Downtown Abbey, springs forth from the country gardens ready to wait on you hand and foot. Or perhaps, next, you may sink down into a ritzy armchair and lock eyes with the Pope over a table of fine dining. These types of bespoke travel experiences are not just a figment of the imagination, but a reality made possible by one luxury concierge service. Cracking open vaults previously sealed shut and forging through avenues formerly closed to the public, Knightsbridge Circle first finds and then uncorks exceptional bespoke travel experiences for its tight-knit group of members. A luxury concierge service crossed with a personal assistant, the circle is helmed by Stuart McNeill and secures its valued members some of the most coveted and often incogitable luxury travel itineraries and exclusive experiences.

More than just a luxury concierge travel service, Knightsbridge Circle positions itself as an enhanced version of a personal assistant. Championing McNeill’s vision of a proactive and personalised service with just one point of contact to streamline members’ wants and longings, the club’s handpicked members are matched with a Personal Manager whose job is to help them realise their innermost desires. Rather than reverting to a dead-end call centre after hours, their body of Personal Managers (each assigned to a maximum of just five clients) is always on-hand to provide personal assistance 24/7, meaning that members receive the utmost personalised care, wherever and whenever they need it. And the opportunities are almost endless: members have attended Queen Elizabeth II’s 90^th birthday at Windsor Castle, travelled to space, and even had their family cat flown via private jet to the Bahamas during the pandemic. With the highest staff to client ratio on the globe, this kind of service is possible, as the circle helps clients to conceive and bring into fruition a travel bucket list they might not have known they ever wanted.

From the outset of his career, travel was on the cards for Stuart McNeill. After achieving a degree in Leisure and Tourism from the Birkbeck College University of London, he joined the travel division of the American Express Centurion Card before moving onto the travel management company Reed & Mackay as a Private Clients Relationship Manager. In 2010, he returned to the original company, this time to assist in launching the Amex Centurion Card Elite Service. While working with elite clients at Centurion, McNeill pinpointed areas where the concierge service could be embroidered, specifically the need for a fully bespoke service that could orbit around one point of contact. “I wanted Knightsbridge Circle to deliver a proactive, personal service where there would be one point of contact. By capping member numbers, we would have more time to negotiate savings and open seemingly closed doors,” he says. After leaving to launch Knightsbridge Circle, McNeill originally grew the club organically, simply by providing high-level luxury concierge services for its founding clients. Since then, having generated more referrals, Knightbridge Circle has become a sought-after exclusive members concierge club, delivering the undeliverable and making the unthinkable happen.

Fall backwards into a chair for a sit-down lunch with the pope, rock up to the Met Gala Ball, or skip the year-long waiting list for a table at The French Laundry. Much like a fairy godmother takes your dream of the perfect trip, waves a wand, and delivers it, Knightsbridge Circle has a knack for making some of the wildest, convoluted and dreamy trips become a reality. “At Knightsbridge Circle, we believe that 99 times out of 100 the answer is always yes,” says McNeill. After all, anyone can book a holiday with one click online, but you almost always make a compromise by placing your trust in a company who has never visited the destination for themselves. This why the team at Knightsbridge Circle are all seasoned travellers who possess the know-how for each destination and sound knowledge of its untapped goldmines, the ideal people to think up luxury concierge travel experiences that are out of the box.  “We are constantly chatting about our internal distribution list and pride ourselves on not selling something until we have seen it with our own eyes. For example, we’ve had members of the team fly out to look at a villa ahead of a client’s visit,” McNeill explains.

It’s the experiences’ level of unprecedented access that sets Knightsbridge Circle apart. Their trips are certainly memorable. Members have been escorted by the NYPD to a VIP location to watch the ball drop live in the centre of Times Square, an evening that ended with champagne, dessert and music at one of the city’s finest restaurants. One client raised £20,000 for Jim Carter’s charities while being waited on hand and foot by the man himself. While another client enjoyed being worked into shape by Anthony Joshua.

None of this would be possible without Knightsbridge Circle’s hands-on and personal ethos. Working with members on a daily, if not hourly basis, they nimbly pluck out ideas tailored to their client’s interests and lifelong longings.  After all, while some individuals will be enthralled by the glitz and glamour of a stay at The Ritz-Carlton, other clients will be drawn to the discreet luxury of a boutique hotel. “Many of our members have the world at their fingertips so we’ve always considered personal touches, which is what we believe makes a Knightsbridge Circle membership so important. We are always considering the small touches that make a stay memorable – from embroidering a couple’s initials on a pillowcase, framing family photographs in the room or simply being there to welcome members at check-in,” McNeill explains.

Because the fit with the client is so important, you can’t simply apply to join Knightsbridge Circle and find yourself part of the circle the next day. Their diverse clientele is handpicked for a reason and each new member is decided with a committee meeting. Ultimately, they are people with a zest for life, who will engage and benefit the most from their luxury concierge services, and whose perspective on luxury and values are aligned with the circle.

As for the clients’ satisfaction, the luxury concierge service’s elixir is simply the feeling of a simpler life. “Many of our clients spend so much time travelling or working that they are looking for one company who can handle all requests, whether that be hiring nannies or paying water bills to organising training sessions with Anthony Joshua,’ McNeill explains. This hasn’t been more important than in the cyclonic COVID-19 international pandemic. While most of the world have been scratching their heads, Knightsbridge Circle has been constructing micro-breweries, installing home gyms, hosting virtual tastings and adult education classes, and even going so far as to deliver special blend tea from Claridge’s to their clients’ homes. Moulding and reconfiguring around the fluctuant nature of the pandemic, Knightsbridge Circle is preparing to rekindle their clients’ love affair with travel through trips backed by a Book with Confidence policy and flexible itineraries. With much-loved destinations gradually making their recovery and long-awaited hotel openings finally in fruition, their clients can grasp travel again firmly by the hand, with Knightsbridge Circle there to guide and nurture their re-emergence into the world.

For elite travelers and high-level professionals, a concierge service that can fashion out-of-the-ordinary and unfathomable bespoke experiences is one that stands out, and that is Knightsbridge Circle’s elixir. Through picking the brains of their clients and relating with them on a one-on-one basis, their team has a knack for joining the dots where there weren’t any before and upscaling the way their clients trot around the globe.