A jet card and a dry lease are trying to solve the same problem for two different kinds of people. Both exist because charter, booked one trip at a time, is expensive and unpredictable. A jet card fixes that by prepaying for a pool of hours across a fleet you don't own. A dry lease fixes it by putting you in a specific airplane at a published rate, with you holding the responsibility. Neither is a scam and neither is free lunch — but the fine print in each is genuinely different, and most of the marketing on both sides skips it. Here it is, side by side.
What a jet card actually is
A jet card is a prepaid account, usually $100,000 to $500,000 or more, that draws down as you fly on a program operator's fleet (or its partner network) at a locked hourly rate. You call, they dispatch a tail — sometimes the same model, sometimes not, depending on the program. The pitch is real: no aircraft to think about, no pilot to hire, no operational control to hold. You buy hours; someone else runs the airline.
The part that doesn't make the brochure is the calendar. Most cards carry peak-day or "high-demand" blackout provisions — often 40 or more days a year (the days around major holidays, and the days everyone else with a card also wants to fly) where the guaranteed-availability promise either doesn't apply or requires extra notice and a surcharge. Read the contract's peak-day schedule before you read the hourly rate; it tells you more about what you're actually buying.
Fuel surcharges and escalators — the rate isn't the rate
The quoted hourly rate on a jet card is rarely the rate you pay. Fuel surcharges are added on top and adjust with the market — reasonable in principle, but it means your per-hour cost floats even though the card felt like a fixed-price product when you bought it. On top of that, most multi-year cards carry a CPI or index-linked escalator clause: your locked rate isn't actually locked for the life of the card, it steps up on a schedule tied to inflation or the operator's own cost index. None of this is hidden exactly — it's in the contract — but "locked rate" and "rate that escalates annually per an index you didn't pick" are two different sentences, and only one of them is usually in the sales deck.
The deposit question
The other fine-print item worth sitting with: a jet card is a large, prepaid balance sitting on someone else's balance sheet. You've paid in full for hours you haven't flown yet, and your claim to that money — if the program operator runs into financial trouble — is an unsecured one, in line behind secured creditors. That's not a knock on any specific company; it's just what a prepaid credit balance is, structurally, anywhere in any industry. It's worth asking a card provider directly how your deposit is held, whether it's escrowed or commingled with operating funds, and what happens to unflown balances if the company is acquired or restructures. A straight answer to that question tells you a lot.
We'll be equally direct about our own structure: a Palm Aero block-hour lease is also a prepayment, and those hours also expire — ours on a 12-month clock, same as most programs in this category. We're not raising the deposit question to claim we're different on timing; we're raising it because the exposure is different in kind. Your prepayment with us buys hours on one specific, named airframe that you can go look at, not a claim on a shared fleet's future flying capacity. That's a narrower promise, and narrower is easier to evaluate.
Where jet cards genuinely win
Fair is fair, and this is the honest part. If what you want is to make one phone call and have a professionally flown airplane show up — no pilot to source, no insurance policy to carry, no operational control to hold, no relationship to manage — a jet card does that better than a dry lease ever will, because that's the entire point of the product. Guaranteed availability outside peak days is a real, valuable thing for someone who flies six or eight times a year and wants zero involvement in the machinery behind the trip. A dry lease asks you to be the operator. If you don't want that job, don't take it — a jet card is the honest answer, not a lesser one.
Jet card vs. dry lease, side by side
| Question | Jet card | Palm Aero dry lease |
|---|---|---|
| What you're buying | A prepaid hour balance, drawn on a fleet you don't choose trip to trip | The aircraft itself — a specific Citation CJ1, rented to you |
| Who flies it | The program's crew — included, no involvement required | A pilot you hire and pay directly (we can share a list of qualified independent pilots) |
| Who holds operational control | The operator, under its Part 135 certificate | You, under Part 91 |
| Rate stability | Locked rate typically subject to fuel surcharges plus a CPI/index escalator over the card's term | Published block rate ($1,750/hr, indicative until final confirmation) — see the aircraft page |
| Availability | Guaranteed outside peak-day exclusions (often 40+ days/year) | Non-exclusive — you request, we confirm; never guaranteed |
| Your involvement | Minimal — pay, call, fly | Real — you hire the pilot, carry the insurance, hold go/no-go |
| Prepayment risk | Unsecured claim against a program's shared, pooled balance sheet | Prepayment tied to one named, inspectable aircraft — still a prepayment, still worth diligence |
| Best fit | Occasional flyers who want zero operational involvement | Regular flyers (roughly 20+ hrs/yr) who want control and direct costs |
The category problem, not a company problem
None of this is about any one provider. The category — fractional-style prepaid flying, broadly — has real, structural fine print: peak-day carve-outs, floating fuel surcharges, index escalators, and a prepaid balance that's only as good as the program behind it. Some programs disclose all of this cleanly. Others bury it in an addendum you get after you've already wired the deposit. The fix isn't finding the one honest card provider; it's reading the contract for these five things before you sign anything, on any card, from anyone.
How to think about which one fits
If you fly a handful of times a year, want a single phone call to handle everything, and genuinely don't want to touch the machinery — the pilot hire, the insurance, the go/no-go call — a jet card is doing its job. If you fly more often, want a specific airplane you actually know, and would rather pay direct costs than someone else's margin and escalators, a dry lease is the better structure. We've written up the full cost breakdown if you want the numbers on the lease side, and the basics of what a dry lease is if the terminology is new. Or just run your own flying pattern through the estimator — it's built to compare against exactly this kind of prepaid-hours math, and every assumption is editable.
The bottom line
A jet card sells convenience and a guarantee, and prices both into the rate, the surcharges, and the escalator. A dry lease sells a specific airplane at a published, direct-cost rate, and prices in the work you take on to run it. Neither is the villain here — they're built for different people. If the honest answer to "how involved do you want to be" is "not at all," we'll tell you a jet card is probably the right tool, same as we'd tell anyone flying under 15 hours a year that charter makes more sense than a lease. If the honest answer is "I want to know exactly what I'm flying and exactly what it costs," let's talk about the lease.
This article describes general, common terms in the jet-card category based on publicly typical program structures; specific programs vary, and prospective buyers should read their own card contract in full, including peak-day schedules, surcharge and escalator provisions, and deposit-handling terms. Nothing here names or characterizes any specific company. Palm Aero Group's own block-hour lease balances are also prepaid and expire on a 12-month term. This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice — see our resources page for more, and confirm any lease structure with qualified aviation counsel. Palm Aero Group is not a charter operator and holds no Part 135 certificate — here's exactly how a compliant dry lease works.