Frequently Asked Questions
Postcard Travel Club is a membership platform for conscious luxury travel, built around Hotel-Crafted Journeys and a digital travel diary. It connects mindful travellers with boutique, independently owned properties through curated multi-night journeys and preferred member rates, rather than acting as a booking site or travel agency.
Conscious luxury travel pairs high-quality, design-led experiences with genuine care for place, culture and community. At Postcard it means slower, more intentional journeys with properties that have a real sense of story and stewardship.
Postcard is for travellers who value mindful, meaningful journeys over mass-market tourism. Members tend to care about design, culture and sustainability, and prefer to stay longer and go deeper in fewer places.
Postcard's travel library spans more than 2,000 boutique hotels across 130+ countries, alongside over 6,000 curated experiences. Live Journeys are rolling out gradually, beginning with Sri Lanka's tea country, and the CityCircle local chapter network is being piloted in Bangalore.
The Postcard travel library is a curated index of more than 2,000 boutique hotels across 130+ countries, together with over 6,000 hand-picked experiences. Postcard is reaching out to every property in the library to craft Postcard Journeys, so the collection of live journeys keeps growing over time.
Postcard has an active online community on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, and a newsletter read by over 4,000 members across 70 countries. Following along is a good way to discover new journeys, hotels and stories as they are published.
Individual membership, called StarLife, is US$500 per year. Postcard also offers two partner memberships: US$2,000 per year for boutique properties (StarPartner) and US$1,000 per year for travel designers and local specialists (Destination Expert).
For members who take even a couple of journeys a year, the preferred member rate can offset much or all of the annual fee. StarLife also includes at least 15% off best available rates at partner properties and priority access to curated retreats.
StarLife includes preferred rates on Postcard Journeys, a minimum of 15% off best available rates at StarPartner properties, priority access to Postcard-curated retreats, and priority access to CityCircle membership.
StarLife, Postcard's individual membership, is a paid annual membership joined by application. You can apply through the Postcard website, and prospective members are often introduced by an existing member.
Once your application is received, someone from the Postcard team reviews it and arranges an onboarding call. After the call, you are assigned a relationship manager and become an official member.
Yes. Postcard runs on an annual membership rather than booking commissions. That structure is what allows it to pass preferred rates directly to members instead of adding fees on top.
Yes. You can cancel your membership with 30 days' notice. The annual subscription is non-refundable, so your membership and its benefits continue until the end of the paid year.
A Postcard Journey is a three-to-five-night trip crafted by a boutique hotel, combining the stay with a set of immersive local experiences. Everything is arranged in advance and presented as a series of digital postcards, so you simply arrive and take part.
Each Journey includes several nights at the host property plus a defined set of curated experiences, such as guided walks, cultural encounters and meals. Every Journey lists its inclusions and exclusions clearly, alongside a standard rate and a StarLife member rate.
You enquire through the Journey page on the Postcard website, and the booking is arranged directly between you and the host property. Members receive the preferred rate.
Journeys are published at a standard rate, with StarLife members paying the underlying partner rate — a saving of around 15%. For example, the first Postcard Journey at Ellerton in Sri Lanka is US$1,483 per room at the standard rate and US$1,290 for StarLife members.
The first live Journey is "Follow the Trails of Mist-wrapped Tea Country" at Ellerton Bungalow in Kandy, Sri Lanka. It runs four days and three nights, built around the Pekoe Trail, with six curated experiences through the island's mist-wrapped tea country.
A digital postcard is Postcard's core content object — a two-sided digital media format, protected by a US design patent (D1085103S1), that ties a place, hotel, restaurant, event or experience to its story. You can collect, keep and revisit each one, and together they form a personal library, diary and travel identity.
Yes. The digital postcard is a two-sided digital media format protected by a US design patent (D1085103S1), making it a distinctive and ownable part of the Postcard experience.
The travel diary is where you collect postcards as you travel and add your own photographs to turn them into lasting memories. It follows a simple loop — collect, experience, remember — building into a personal timeline of your journeys.
Postcard city guides are collections of digital postcards covering the restaurants, shops and events worth knowing in a place. They let you discover the character of a city and save the spots you love into your travel diary.
A CityCircle is a local chapter network that brings Postcard members together in a city through gatherings and shared experiences. It is Postcard's community layer, launching first in Bangalore, then expanding to cities across India, and ultimately to major cities worldwide.
CityCircle is by invitation and, at this time, free to join. It sits alongside StarLife as the community side of Postcard, connecting members within a city.
StarLife is Postcard's paid annual membership, joined by application, giving access to Journeys, member rates and benefits. CityCircle is the local chapter network — by invitation and free at this time — that connects members within a city.
Postcard does not charge hotels a commission or mark up bookings for members. It earns from membership instead, which means member rates are genuinely preferred rates rather than discounts, and properties keep more of what guests pay.
No. Postcard is a membership club, not an online travel agency. It curates journeys and passes preferred rates to members, with bookings arranged directly between members and host properties.
Boutique and independently owned properties can join as StarPartners for US$2,000 per year. StarPartners craft their own Journeys, reach values-aligned travellers, and offer members preferred rates without paying booking commissions.
A Destination Expert is a travel designer or local specialist who joins Postcard's global supply network for US$1,000 per year. They bring on-the-ground expertise, help shape journeys across their destinations, and can promote their own curated retreats to Postcard's community of conscious luxury travellers.
Yes. As Destination Experts, travel designers can showcase their curated retreats to Postcard's community of conscious luxury travellers — an audience that actively seeks mindful, design-led experiences.
Postcard's model is commission-free, so properties keep more of each booking, and Journeys are designed to encourage longer stays. Each published Journey also becomes a way for the hotel's own audience to discover Postcard.
