This is a complex topic, so if you’re looking for simplicity in jet travel, download our free decision guide, then contact a provider and let them know you prize simplicity and flexibility.

However, if you’re willing to spend some extra time, you can save tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars by using a portfolio approach to jet travel. Depending on the profile of a trip, it may make sense to occasionally stray from whatever plan you settle on as your long-term solution.

Helium Report’s Decision Guide to Private Jet Travel provides more thorough coverage, with an emphasis on understanding your plan’s cost structure:

Cost structure is an important consideration. If you’re not benefiting from a component of a cost you’re paying, then you’re simply subsidizing others who are.

Here’s an example: fractional companies don’t charge separately for deadhead legs or plane positioning- it’s buried in the monthly and/or hourly costs. It’s a legitimate component of the “white-glove” simplification of fractional flight: no hassle, no haggle, just the plane you want, where you want it, when you want it.

Although you’re shielded from the operational arrangements and direct cost of these procedures, they are happening. A plane has to be brought in; a crew may be flown in separately the night before, fed and housed. They fly you to Palm Beach, then move the plane elsewhere and the crew buys commercial tickets to fly back to their homes. A week later, the process repeats. It’s a simple round-trip flight for you, but it could represent six flights on “your” plane, eight additional commercial tickets, four hotel nights plus per diem.

If those costs are happening, you’re paying for them somewhere. Worse: if those costs aren’t happening on your flight, you’re still paying for them.

Consider your neighbor making the same trip: The plane and crew happen to be locally based for a business flight to Palm Beach. He spends two hours in meetings, plays nine holes with an important client and has a quick dinner with a local executive. The plane takes off eight hours after he landed. In this case, the added cost is simply lunch for the crew. Yet under fractional and some card programs, your neighbor pays the same as you. Clearly his efficient trip is heavily subsidizing your inefficient trip.

In a section titled When to Fly Out of Program, our analysts identify a few rules of thumb:

Consider commercial if:

• Your plan is for a larger plane but you have only one or two passengers
• Your plan is for a smaller plane but your trip requires greater range.
• There’s an excellent first-class service provider such as Cathay Pacific or Lufthansa.
• You want your kids to be familiar with commercial aviation
• You want no public record of you or your company’s travel on this trip

Consider charter if:

• Your trip requires longer range than the aircraft you own
• You have trips that require special aircraft: unusually large, helicopter, seaplane
• You have very efficient trips: roundtrips with short stays that can be serviced with locally-based aircraft
• You find special values in published “empty-leg” flights

Consider a supplemental card program if:

• You anticipate overflying a fractional program, but can’t justify or afford another share
• You need occasional flexibility on a different plane and don’t want to consume your fractional hours

To these rules, we’d add an umbrella rule on when to fly out of program:

• anytime your flight does not take advantage of most of your program’s benefits and guarantees

Consider the underlying costs of running these programs. If your provider guarantees a eight-hour call-out window (i.e., your jet is avail within eight hours of your request), there’s a cost of that readiness that will be embedded in your fee. If a key trip is predictable much earlier, you may get a better rate with a different provider, who can set their pricing according to less demanding guarantees. The same is true for peak period travel and other touted benefits of various programs.

Ironically, there is a cost to all these savings. Private jet travel is typically the reserve of those who have more money than time. It brings consistency, convenience, simplicity and flexibility to aviation. By scrounging among a handful of fractional or card programs, and cycling through ad-hoc charter quotes, you may by missing the point. That’s especially true if your plan includes complex terms and conditions. Marquis Jet has pointedly resisted implementing these programs, in part to preserve the simplicity of its plan (see the Helium Report story here).

It’s up to you to decide whether the tradeoff is worthwhile, and how important simplicity and consistency is to your private jet experience. Our Decision Guide to Private Jet Travel compares all formats of jet travel across convenience, flexibility, cost and other criteria. You can download a copy free here, or browse our resources for more articles on private jet travel.