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Old Dec 8, 2018, 8:22 pm
  #38  
Nicoolio
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 557
Originally Posted by millions
Another federal lawsuit brought by members Sheri Laine and Gary Seidler alleging fraud and unfair business practices was filed in the Southern District of Florida. This brings the current tally of pending lawsuits by members or ex-members in state and federal court to at least eight, along with multiple arbitration proceedings.
Interesting...Seems like Sergey's comments reaffirm that they were promising old members the free seats would continue...I guess the question is at what point did the execs know they were going to be pulling back the free seats. If they were still selling memberships based on the benefit at the same time they knew they were going to withdraw it or cut back on it, that sounds like jail time.

On March 26, 2018, in an interview with Private Jet Card Comparisons CEO Sergey Petrossov was trumpeting new lower membership costs while promising members in its old program would continue to enjoy the benefits they had paid for.


He told us, “We are lowering the fee of entry for new members to democratize the access point even more. Annual membership is now $4,950 plus a $3,000 initiation fee. These new members will pay more per seat than (existing) SMART members do now.The plan is to open up access to more people that fly even a few times per year versus more frequent fliers that are joining today with SMART membership for $15,000. Existing SMART members are not affected by this and keep their old membership with better pricing and perks.”

Petrossov told us, “Sophisticated is $50,000 and has been that way for a while. We are making it more private and won’t be advertising as much to make it more exclusive. We are continuously expanding the service and features.”


According to a lawsuit filed last week in the United States District Court Southern District of Florida by Sheri Laine and Gary Seidler on March 29, 2018, they received an email from JetSmarter that this would be their “Last chance to become a founding JetSmarter member.” The company was founded in 2012. The each bought in for the SMART membership paying a combined $30,000.



They were told by joining they would still be able to get free seats for flights under three hours even as the private jet-sharing service, what until then had been a core benefit. From that point, they were hit with multiple approaches to upgrade to the SOPHISTICATED membership with offers to pay $97,500 for three years through mid-June, although they declined.

Source: Private Jet Card Comparisons
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