How to judge any jet card

What a jet card is

A jet card is prepaid flying. You buy a block of hours, or a block of funds that converts to hours, in one aircraft category. When you want to fly, you call with the notice the program requires, and the program sources an aircraft in that category. You do not own anything. You are buying availability and a known set of terms, and those terms are the product.

Cards suit people who fly several times a year and want one call to make, the same category each time, and no quote to read before each trip. If you fly once or twice a year, charter is usually the better answer, and we will say so on the fit check.

The nine terms to read before the rate

Every card program publishes a rate, and every program's terms decide what that rate actually buys. Read these nine before you compare any two numbers.

• Billing basis. Point to point, so you pay for the time you are on board, or actual time with positioning added. Ask whether taxi time counts and whether there is a minimum charge per flight, since a short hop can be billed as a longer one.
• Notice. How many hours before departure you must call on a normal day, and how that changes on a peak day.
• Blackout and peak days. Which dates the program will not fly, and which dates carry a surcharge or longer notice. The count varies a lot between programs.
• Callout time. The time from your call to wheels up, written down, by category.
• Rollover and expiration. Whether unused hours carry into a new term, and when they expire. Some hours are lost on a date; some are refunded; some are neither.
• Funds handling. Where your money sits between trips, whether it is held in an account you can claim back, and what happens to it if the program closes or you leave.
• Service area. Where the program flies without a surcharge, and what an international leg or a trip outside the area adds.
• Aircraft categories. Which category your card buys, what aircraft types sit in it, and whether the program can substitute a different type or a different category.
• Interchange. Whether you can fly a larger or smaller cabin for a trip, and how the hours convert when you do.

Why the terms matter more than the headline rate

Two programs can publish similar rates and deliver very different flying. One bills point to point; the other adds positioning, and a trip to a quiet airport costs noticeably more. One names a short list of peak days; the other names a long one and adds a surcharge to each. One refunds unused funds at the end of the term; the other keeps them. None of that shows in the rate.

The right way to compare cards is to write your own year first. Your usual routes, your usual passengers, the holidays you fly, how often plans change inside two days. Then run each program's terms against that year. The program that fits your year is the one that costs less to fly, whatever the front page says. That is what a fit check is: your year, read against the terms.

Comparing providers

Each row comes from the program's own published materials, with the date the terms were checked, and each row says only what the program's terms say. No adjectives, no ranking. When a term cannot be verified from the program's own materials, the row says so or the program is left out until it can be.

Beside those rows sits the CP Jets card, described in words on the same nine terms: availability with notice, peak days named by date in the proposal, callout by category, rollover and funds handling stated exactly in the proposal, the continental US as the service area, one category per card with the option to move up for a trip, and a pilot behind every trip. Rates are not on this page or in the guide. They depend on the category and the hours you choose, and they come in a written proposal after a short fit check. That way you compare terms first, the way this guide asks you to.

Related

• The CP Jets jet card
• Buying private jet charter, explained
• Fractional shares, explained
• The standards