What is the difference of prepaid jetcard vs on-demand charter?

Prepaid jetcard is when you deposit a fee into a private jet vendor. On-demand charter is when you only pay the private jet vendor when you have a booking.

In this article, we will compare Jet Card vs Ad-Hoc Charter cost using 3 measurement dimensions. The 3 dimensions are measured by:

1. Routing Type

The perks of Jetcard is they do not charge you ferry fee. Take note, however, their per hour cost is 70% or higher than ad-hoc charter. see below for an example:

As you can see in below example, your routing type and the aircraft bases would affect your spending. The only way to find out is to compare the quotations your jet card provider and the ad-hoc charter vendor provides you. With Librajet, we are able to give you quotations very swiftly hence making this comparison process easy for you.

	Jetcard Program ( Each hour @ 16k USD)	Ad Hoc Charter (Each hour @ 9k USD)
One way San Francisco to Seattle ( 2 hours mission flight)	Only charge you 2 hours flight time i.e. USD 16k X 2 = USD 32k	Charge you for 2 hours mission plus 2 hours ferry flight time i.e. USD 9k X 4 = USD 36k
Return San Francisco to Seattle ( 4 hours mission flight)	Charge you 4 hours flight time i.e. USD 16k X 4 = USD 64k	Charge you for 2 hours mission plus 2 hours ferry flight time i.e. USD 9k X 4 = USD 36k

• Conclusions: Use Jetcard when you have Short-haul One Way. Use Ad Hoc Charter when you have a Return trip.

2. The Distance of Your Flight

Do you know that the heavy jet operators are incentivized to fly long haul flights? As this brings better efficiency to their engines overhaul and benefits aircraft valuations during re-sale. Hence with long haul international flight of more than 5 hours, you are going to find a much better pricing scheme with ad-hoc charter vendors compares to jet card vendors. Your ad-hoc private jet vendors have much better flexibility on pricing when it comes to long haul international flights. By comparison, your jetcard providers as pricing are fixed there’s not much they can do for you. In our experience, you would get a substantial saving using ad-hoc charter over jetcards in long haul international flights.

• Conclusions: Use Ad Hoc Charter when you have Long-Haul Flight as this would give you substantial saving compare to Jetcard.

3. The Lead Time of Booking

Since the jet card model is a prepaid model, you would not have to worry about signing paperwork at middle of your night to book a go now flight. Nor do you have to worry about calling your bank on a weekend to authorize an urgent payment for a go now flight. Hence if you do quite often book aircrafts last minute (less than 24 hours notice) jet card is a good model for you.

• Conclusions: Use Jetcard when you have less than 24 hours lead time towards departure.

If You Already Have A Jetcard:

We also recommend existing jet card customers to compare the spending each trip against the ad-hoc charter. See below:

	Jetcard Cost	Ad Hoc Charter Cost	Choose
Trip 1: One Way San Francisco- Seattle ( 2 hours)	USD 32k	USD 36k	Choose Jetcard this time
Trip 2: Return San Francisco – Seattle – San Francisco (2 +2 hours)	USD 64k	USD 36k	Choose ad hoc charter this time

Your jetcard program can exist simultaneously with ad-hoc charter as long as you do not over-commit hours on jetcard programs.

Contact us for your customized made jet card analysis.