Jet Cards
 

I was reading an article in Forbes about fractionals. Even buying a fraction is not cheap. It spoke of purchasing "jet cards" like Marquis Jet Card for NetJets, Vector JetCard for CitationShares, Flexjet 25 card with Flexjet.

How expensive is it to get one of these cards? Will it allow you to ride only once? Does it expire? Can they behave like gift cards that I can give to someone at Christmas let's say? Will I be able to use it for SEA to SAT, for example? Is it for round trip? What happens to the plane when I want to stay in SAT for a couple days?

If you have to ask it's probably too much! Unless you're making Johnny Cochrane bucks...:)

The way the Marquis jet card works for NetJets is this:

You purchase a set number of occupied flight hours for a fixed price. I think for our smallest aircraft (the Beechjet/Hawker 400), the price is around $120,000 for 25 hours. This is 25 hours of occupied time. You won't have to pay for any reposition flights and you can fly wherever and whenever you want within the capabilities of the aircraft and with a certain amount of notice (somewhere around 12 hours I think). I think you have 12 months to use the flight time.

The pros include a relatively short commitment period and low upfront capital expense (compared to fractional ownership). The cons include the fact that you don't get any of the "ownership" benefits such as the tax breaks and you end up paying slightly more per flight hour than if you owned a share of an aircraft and totalled the share purchase price, monthly fee, and hourly fee.

I hope this helps.

The smallest Vector card for CS is approximately the same price for about 20 hours and it's good for 18 months. You can go to the website to get better info.