The 5-Day Trip to Nice

If it’s possible to put a price on taste, Capital One is doing it. By partnering with David Prior’s travel company, Prior, the bank and credit card issuer is funding the luxury lift its founder requires. Because this kind of trip “creation,” to use his term, requires two kinds of angels. Investors, and those revealed only by candlelight, during after-hours visits to the Sistine Chapel.

Why is Capital One heavily subsidizing Prior trips? The business logic is very clear. The bank’s credit card division has to offer very attractive rewards and benefits in order to compete with Amex Platinum and Chase Sapphire, which have larger premium-card franchises overall. It’s essentially a financial turf war. But Capital One is growing the fastest, and Venture X has dramatically changed its parent company’s reputation, mainly through key partnerships like Prior and the Michelin Guide, which have the kind of credibility and caché that attracts affluent travelers.

To those in the travel industry, it seems obvious that Capital One would pursue David Prior. Since its founding in 2018, his company has become known for educated elegance, connecting small groups (15-25 max) to a region’s tastemakers with deep connections to the destination. Read: They open doors most tourists can’t. And they do it beautifully.

For Prior, landing a partnership with Capital One is major, mainly because the bank subsidizes its trips to ensure guests actually have a great experience. “Capital One is a great partner, and it has allowed us to really do great things. We’re proud of the work and it’s really helped us to flourish,” says Prior.

Defining a good versus a ‘great’ trip is highly subjective. The more interesting and answerable question is why these trips are selling out, and what it says about the future of luxury travel in general. Prior hints at this in his new podcast Traveling Through (also sponsored by Capital One):

“There is nothing wrong with having a sense of romance in your head about a particular place, and then marrying it to reality. Sometimes that — if you get to that nexus — it’s a great trip. There’s a place in Seville, for example, that’s the Museum of Flamenco; At first [guests ask]: Why are you sending me to this tourist place? In fact, it just happens to be where you can see the best. You don’t want to go to Seville without experiencing that. You figure out ways to pull out the idea of a place for people. And then you match it with reality.”

Turning the South of France from a dream into reality is Rebekah Peppler’s forté. Because she’s done it for herself. Originally from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Peppler moved to France after graduating from the French Culinary Institute in New York. Now a food writer and cookbook author, she was tapped by Prior as a kind of conduit for the region, because her love and knowledge of its culture and culinary traditions evokes similar passion in her guests. For her, food is a love language and nothing in her purview will be lost in translation.

“The thing is, all the clichés you’ve heard about the south of France are true. The light takes on new forms by the hour, casting beauty on the simplest pleasures. There are open-air markets bursting with sun-ripened produce; the surprisingly loud, surprisingly comforting surround-sound of cicadas in late summer; acres of olive trees, lavender and sunflowers; cliffs that drop into salt-heavy turquoise coves. And the food? It’s not overrated. The figs, the ratatouille, the aïoli, the crispy panisse, pissaladière, braids of garlic, Provençal melons, an overwhelming variety of local cheeses, actually good tapenades, and all the rest… This is the part of France where the French themselves holiday,” writes Rebekah Peppler in her latest cookbook, Le Sud: Recipes from Provence-Alpes-Côte D’Azur.

On day one, Peppler shows the group how to create the perfect apéro (or apéritif) the French way, which is basically a cocktail hour where the point isn’t a half-off drink (see: American Happy Hour); the point is making the most of the precious golden hours before dinner with friends or loved ones. Her version is of course ineffably chic, but it helps a bit to have the private Villa Santo Sospir perched over the sea in Cap Ferrat as a backdrop. (Google says it’s closed, but it opened for Prior’s group).

By day two, the curtain is raised and the group gets to see how she works. On a morning food market crawl in the heart of Vieux Nice, she shows everyone where to source the best olive oil, how to identify good Niçoise olives, and how in-season tomatoes and apricots should actually taste. Looking insouçiant in a perfectly pressed white shirt dress and flat sandals, she’s in her element slinging a paper bag of street-cart Socca soaked through with olive oil. “Socca” are pancakes made of chickpea flour, water, olive oil, which sizzle and steam along the promenade from vendors’ massive copper plates. Peppler tears big chunks of it off and passes it around for everyone to try, before illustrating the culinary importance of a good pissaladière. It’s a traditional French savory tart made with slow-cooked caramelized onions and black olives, which no self-respecting Niçoise chef can do without.

It’s a very ‘if you know, you know,’ kind of trip. Just ask any of the 22 guests who’ve just returned from Prior’s recent sojourn to the South of France, including a stay at the Hôtel du Couvent in Nice. It’s a renovated 17th-century convent with cloistered gardens and Roman baths; a French historical romance unto itself. Location-wise, it’s set far enough away from the crowds on the Promenade des Anglais to feel truly private. And it’s hushed; when you open a window, the dominant sound is of European starlings flapping their wings to the low-hum of Gregorian chant. Sunsets after the rain make everyone audibly gasp, the ivory linens are heavy and soft, and the soap is custom-made by the famed French perfumer Fragonard. But most importantly, for this group of hungry epicureans, the food looks and feels like a 19th century dinner party from the French film The Taste of Things.

From there, the five-day itinerary reads like a master class in culture.

On day one, guests tour Villa Santo Sospir, formerly owned by socialite Francine Weisweiller, who entertained Cocteau, Picasso, and Yves Saint Laurent. It’s the only place in the world where Cocteau's mythological freehand fantasia still covers the walls, before a sunset apérol over the ocean. By day three, the group moves inland to Grasse, the epicenter of the fragrance industry. They wander the International Perfume Museumamid plum trees, jasmine, and marigold, before being transferred to La Mouissone, a private estate of olive groves and stone-walled terraces where an afternoon picnic unfolds like a carbon copy of Monet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe — French romance, without the tuberculosis. Day four brings the hardest-to-get booking of all: a private, after-hours visit to the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, home to the masterworks of Giacometti, Miró, and Chagall, which doubles as the setting for a formal farewell dinner.

The group is a diverse mélange of Indian doctors, American oncologists, retired school teachers, finance lawyers, IT professionals and bon vivant couples ranging in age from their 30s-60s.

Their reviews say a lot: “We’re more than happy to pay for an experience that’s exceptional. And it’s nice to meet people you can travel with,” says traveler Brian McCormack (45) and his wife Jennifer (50), who are taking their fourth Prior x Capital One trip. “We would not have come to the south of France without this trip. To come here, spend the money and not know where to go? No, we trust the organization and we know it’s going to be good. We travel intentionally; you’re an active participant in the future when you travel. We’re saying: we want this to exist.”

The McCormacks’ previous tours with Prior included Napa, California, Piedmont, Italy and Asturias, Spain with José Andrés. They rave about the fun they had at festivals with Andrés, who is a consummate host, and their experience in Napa and Sonoma Valley, which was the first Prior trip offered to Venture X cardholders. Amy Shapiro and her husband Roger, also four-time trippers, are empty nesters who live outside of Washington, D.C. Shapiro says, “It’s all about the access for us. We wouldn’t be able to do this otherwise. They’re really well organized trips.”

Both couples are already booked to go to Peru in October. Billed as the “Trip of Wonder,” it traverses Peru from the Sacred Valley to Machu Picchu. Also upcoming in September, 2026 are two trips to Asturias, Spain, in September with José Andrés, and Vienna with interior designer Athena Calderone.

“Together with our trusted partner Prior, we are proud to continue expanding these offerings each year, as they consistently resonate with customers looking for more authentic, enriching, and culturally connected travel experiences,” says Monica Weaver, Head of Branded Card Partnerships & Experiences at Capital One.

Spokespersons tell us that rewards cardholders earn 5% cashback or 5x miles. But that’s table stakes. The much bigger deal is that Venture X cardholders get priority access to Prior trips at a discount (Capital One trip tickets are sold in pairs and average $3,725 per person, whereas original Prior trips typically hover around $10,000 per ticket). Cardholders are now awaiting news of the lineup for 2027, which has not yet been announced. With only typically 15-25 spots available on each trip, it’s a race to see who books first.

Creating intrigue and demand for a luxury travel product is nothing new. But there’s something essentially different about what Prior is doing, and I suspect it’s much more than just a dream-plus-logistics formula. So, I head downtown to meet him at his New York office to get a better understanding.

“Everything we do at Prior is this balance of romance and rigor. The romance is only as good as the execution,” he says, in his affable Australian accent. “Because otherwise it’s fake. If you don’t do it in a beautiful way, in a respectful way, in a way that understands the vernacular of a place, you don’t have it. But if you have the right relationships, the heavens can open up and reveal the essence of a place. Otherwise, it can feel fake and plugged-in.” Touristy.

I ask about future growth prospects for his company, considering the fact that artificial intelligence can now plan elaborately personalized trips. It will choose the hotel, the restaurant, the church, et cetera.

“But are you going behind the nave of the church? Are you meeting the chef? Are you hanging out with José Andrés?” poses Prior, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “I think that’s the future of luxury travel at the premium end, because it's going to be about owning the creativity around experiences and the access to those experiences.”

#OOTT (Outfit Of The Trip) is from L’Agence.
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