PrivateJetSky / Guides / Jet card or fractional share.
Jet card or fractional share.
These are not two versions of the same product. A jet card is a prepayment: you hand an aviation company money and draw it down in flight hours at an agreed rate. A fractional share is a purchase: you buy a legal interest in a specific aircraft, pay a monthly fee to have it managed, and pay again per occupied hour. One is a deposit with terms. The other is an asset with an exit. Almost every comparison you will read is published by a company selling one of them, and the tell is always the same: the exit is missing.
Everything below is computed from the same published model as the rest of this site, using super-midsize figures as the middle of the market. Change the class and hours yourself in the Mission Matcher.
Where each one actually wins
Mid-range annual cost, all figures EST, super-midsize class:
| Hours a year | On-demand charter | Jet card | Fractional share | Cheapest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | $199K | $313K | $664K | Charter |
| 50 | $398K | $626K | $821K | Charter |
| 75 | $597K | $939K | $1.23M | Charter |
| 100 | $797K | $1.25M | $1.64M | Charter |
| 150 | $1.19M | $1.88M | $2.46M | Charter |
| 200 | $1.59M | $2.51M | $3.28M | Charter |
| 300 | $2.39M | $3.76M | $4.92M | Charter |
The pattern is consistent across classes. Below roughly 25 hours a year, nothing beats on-demand charter, because you are not buying enough to amortise anything. Between about 25 and 100 hours the card is usually the cheaper committed product. Past that, the fractional share starts to win on pure annual cost, and the question stops being about price.
What the card premium buys
A card costs more per hour than the spot market, and that is the product working as designed rather than a rip-off. What you are buying is a contractual promise that an aircraft appears inside a call-out window at a rate that does not move with the market. If your travel is unpredictable and unmissable, that promise has real value. If your dates flex, you are paying a premium for a guarantee you will rarely exercise.
Three things reliably erode that premium, and all three live in the contract rather than the brochure: the peak-day calendar, the escalator clause, and the remedy when the guarantee fails. The fine print audit covers all twelve questions; those three decide most of it.
What the share commits, including the part nobody models
At 100 hours a year in this class the share capital sized to your flying commits about $3.30M before a single management fee. That capital is not a deposit. It is an aircraft interest that depreciates while you own it and has to be sold back when you leave.
Modeled at roughly 10% depreciation a year and the 5 to 10% remarketing fee these contracts typically charge on exit, about $1.49M–$1.57M comes back after five years. Call the difference what it is: $1.73M to $1.81M consumed by holding the asset, on top of every fee and every occupied hour you already paid. It appears in no hourly rate and on no comparison page written by a seller.
That number is not an argument against fractional ownership. Above roughly 100 hours a year it is frequently still the right answer, and the service consistency is genuinely better than the spot market can offer. It is an argument against comparing an hourly rate to an hourly rate and thinking you have compared the products.
The five questions that actually decide it
- How many hours, honestly, for the next five years? Not last year's number and not the optimistic one. The whole comparison pivots on it, and a share signed for hours you do not fly is the most expensive mistake in this category.
- How much of your flying lands on peak dates? Cards concede the most exactly when demand is highest. If your calendar is school holidays and finals weekends, count those days against the card's peak list before comparing any rate.
- What happens when the guarantee fails? Both products promise availability. Only the contract says what you are owed when it does not arrive.
- Can you carry the capital, and the exit? A share is illiquid for months and priced on the way out by a valuation method written into your contract. Ask who determines fair market value before you sign, not after.
- What does the deposit sit behind? Card money is usually an unsecured prepayment to the provider. Ask whether client funds are escrowed or segregated. It is one sentence, and the answer has mattered more than once in this industry.
The honest summary
Under 25 hours a year, charter and keep your capital. From 25 to about 100 hours with a rigid calendar, a card buys certainty at a premium you can measure. Past that, with predictable flying and capital you can afford to have depreciate, a share usually wins on cost and consistently wins on service, provided you modeled the exit before you signed. Anyone who gives you a cleaner answer than that has not asked you enough questions.
Run it against your own numbers in the Mission Matcher, which prints a decision memo you can forward. If you already hold a card, the same tool prices your renewal against the published category average.