Would You Hire a Membership Advisor to Get Into a Private Club?

Plus: you can buy CBK's wardrobe until March 3rd and the chicest restaurant steak knives in New York City

Feb 23, 2026

There are now people you hire to help you get into a private club.

Maxime's, Augusta National Golf Club, San Vicente Bungalows, Apogee, White's, Cypress Point Club, Aman Club, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Yellowstone Club, Maidstone Club, Annabel's, The Madison Club, Core Club, Liberty National Golf Club, The Battery… In certain zip codes, joining the right country club or members club is essential. But it also can be a capital-P project. You’re going to need two sponsors who will actually return your calls. Then you might need to know whether the membership committee meets monthly or quarterly. And you could need to know if the club is mid-renovation, mid-capital campaign, or mid-drama. These days, people trade this information the way they used to trade restaurant reservations. At some point, some smart person figured out it was easier to hire a professional.

The rise of the private club membership advisor cottage industry tracks almost perfectly with the tightening of the gates. Between 2020 and 2023, more than 500 private golf clubs added formal waitlists. Roughly half of all members clubs now report one, up from about a quarter in 2019. Median initiation fees at many U.S. clubs have doubled since the pandemic, rising from roughly $25,000 to around $50,000. In competitive markets, fees jumped 20 to 40 percent. Initiation now regularly reaches six figures at the top end. Timelines to even hear back from these places can stretch from 18 to 36 months. Private members clubs expanded at the same time. More than 150 members-club-style venues opened in North America and Europe between 2020 and 2024. In some cities, new clubs fill quickly and quietly close lists within their first year. So what do high net-worth applicants do? The same thing they always do. They hire help.

The advisory market for private clubs is small but real. It’s also increasingly growing. Some of it sits inside global concierge firms such as Quintessentially and Sincura Group, both of which publicly state that they assist clients with private members club applications while making clear they cannot guarantee outcomes. (Sincura lists a Platinum concierge tier at £1,200 per month plus VAT. Higher bespoke tiers run several thousand per month depending on geography and scope.) If a client is targeting several clubs at once, engagements with an advisor may extend well beyond a single “committee cycle.” (Fees are rarely published, but industry sources describe retainers for some admissions consultants in the low thousands per month, with some engagements climbing into five figures over the course of an application cycle).

Sublimity Lifestyle openly describes offering “application strategy and preparation” for “elite clubs,” including coaching clients on protocol and “leverag[ing] our extensive network to secure introductions to current members who may serve as sponsors.” The language is careful but clear: they are not consulting for the clubs. They are advising the hopefuls.

Prime Access Group positions itself even more starkly as access brokerage. Its public framing reads like a manifesto: “Private Access. Real Results” and “No public listings. No noise. Only access.” The firm says it “represents private clients from inquiry to delivery,” a phrase that suggests major hand-holding without ever naming the door being knocked on.

Many “we can get you in” claims are deliberately vague in public, for obvious reasons. The phrasing rarely reads, “we place you at (club name).” The specifics remain, conveniently, off these websites. So what do they do exactly?

It comes down to who is willing to sponsor you and when your name hits the table. Advisors know which members actually carry weight and how an introduction should unfold so it feels natural. Sometimes there’s a ghostwriter involved to make sure the application doesn’t read like it was written on LinkedIn. Clubs slow admissions during capital projects or when categories are full. Submit at the wrong moment and you can sit for months. If it goes in right after three resignations and with the right person nudging it along, it moves.

Clubs publicly insist that membership cannot be bought. That is still true. What can be bought is the difference between sitting on a list and moving off it.

If you suddenly find yourself writing about membership advisors or private-club admissions consultants, you know the drill. Credit RPS. You saw it here first.

Free letter today to welcome the hundreds of new subscribers who joined us over the weekend after Deux Moi put us on her grid and blasted it to her Instagram Stories. If you have no idea what I’m referring to, you can read the story here, just know it’s paywalled, which makes this an excellent moment to upgrade if you’ve been hovering over the button. We’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming on Wednesday.

In today’s letter: Lane Florsheim on ultrawealthy flyers, @the.fashion.auctioneer Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s actual wardrobe, Love Story, Deux Moi, Frederick “Freck” Vreeland, Andrew Zucker, Town & Country, The Eighty Six, Eugene Remm and more…

In the WSJ this weekend, Lane Florsheim wrote about how ultrawealthy flyers now treat their jets like apartments in the sky, squeezing in spas, indoor bikes and Michelin-level kitchens that most of us couldn’t even fit in a Manhattan closet.
The Instagram account @the.fashion.auctioneer is auctioning off four pieces from Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s actual wardrobe, including her camel coats and a black dress she was known for, with bidding open through early March. Hey Love Story addicts: Why stream the fantasy when you can own the prop?
I was really sad to find out over the weekend about the death of Frederick “Freck” Vreeland, the longtime American diplomat, former CIA officer (code for spy) and son of fashion icon Diana Vreeland. We had a friendly Instagram DM rapport, and I always found him to be one of the most interesting people in and out of my inbox. He passed at age 98 at his home in Rome. He was one of the most culturally attuned men I knew. If Freck isn’t already on your radar, give yourself a Google.
The Epstein files are riddled with spelling mistakes, which feels on brand for a scandal that always assumed no one would look too closely. Andrew Zucker points out that even the paperwork tied to Jeffrey Epstein couldn’t be bothered to be spell-checked in his story for Town & Country, “Are They Too Rich To Spell?”
I went back to The Eighty Six this weekend and only just realized that when you order a steak, they hand you vintage 1970s Laguiole Royal knives they sourced from a French flea market. Not replicas, not something bought in bulk, but the real, slightly weighty things. It’s such a specific choice you almost miss it. Also, did everyone see the New York Post (in print) on Friday reporting that Eugene Remm may be taking over the Saint Theo’s space? If true, he is quietly speed-running downtown hospitality, one mood-lit room at a time. That man doesn’t open restaurants, he annexes neighborhoods.