Which one, and when
Jet card, share, or charter?
Work out your own crossing point
Charter costs come from the published market ranges used across this site. Programme costs come from you — we publish no figures for anyone else's product.
What you are choosing between
Four structures, including the two we do not sell and the one we would not advise on.
On-demand charter
You pay per trip. No capital in, no commitment, a different aircraft each time.
Wins when — Irregular flying, varied trip lengths, and anyone who does not yet know what their pattern looks like.
Costs you — You are exposed to the market on each trip — peak weekends and last-minute one-ways price accordingly.
Jet card
You prepay a block of hours at a fixed hourly rate, often with guaranteed availability and a call-out window.
Wins when — Predictable flying where the value is in a locked rate and a guaranteed aircraft rather than the lowest number.
Costs you — You pay a premium for that guarantee, and your money sits with the programme before you have flown.
Fractional share
You buy a share of a specific aircraft, pay a monthly management fee, and an occupied hourly rate on top.
Wins when — High, consistent hours over several years, where the fixed costs spread thin enough to beat per-trip pricing.
Costs you — Capital is tied up and the share depreciates. What it is worth at the end of the term decides whether the maths worked.
Whole ownership
You buy and operate the aircraft, with crew, hangarage, maintenance and management as your own costs.
Wins when — Very high utilisation, or a requirement — cabin, configuration, availability — nothing else satisfies.
Costs you — It is a business, not a purchase. Outside the scope of this calculator and usually outside what a broker should advise on.
Straight answers
- Which is actually cheapest?
- It depends entirely on how much you fly and on the terms you are offered, which is why this page is a calculator rather than an answer. Broadly, per-trip charter carries no fixed cost and so wins at low hours; programmes carry fixed costs that spread thinner as hours rise. Where the lines cross depends on your quote.
- Why won't you tell me what a jet card costs?
- Because we do not know, and neither does anyone publishing a number for it. Programme pricing is quoted privately, varies by aircraft, term and season, and changes. We have committed not to publish rates we have not confirmed, and that applies to a competitor's product as much as to our own.
- What is the biggest mistake in comparing these?
- Treating a fractional share as a deposit. The share depreciates, and the capital you do not get back at the end of the term is a real annual cost — often the largest one. This calculator charges it against each year, which is why a share can look expensive here even when the hourly rate is attractive.
- Do your charter figures include everything?
- They include a positioning allowance, our 10% brokerage fee at the tier your flying implies, and 7.5% federal excise tax. They do not include catering, ground transport, de-icing or the per-passenger segment fee, all of which are itemised on a real quote. They are market ranges rather than a quote, and a real trip can fall outside them.
- Is a broker biased against cards and shares?
- Structurally, yes — we make nothing when you buy one. That is the reason this page hands you the arithmetic instead of the conclusion. If your numbers say a programme wins, it wins, and we would rather you find that out here than after a year of the wrong product.
Still deciding how to buy rather than what to fly? The broker page covers who holds operational control under each of these, which matters more than the price when something goes wrong.