Apache137

Was on a jetshuttle this weekend, and there was a four hour delay for mechanical.
At first they said they'd have it ready to go, as they had another jet on standby a couple of hangars over.... the story changed several times, until eventually we boarded the original jet.

This was incredibly disappointing. This wasn't a jet deal, but a scheduled flight by jet smarter with assigned seating. They offered no compensation whatsoever, and one poor woman was kept off the flight at the very end and wasn't able to fly after waiting 4 hours for the delay. They took all of the checked bags in one rack to be checked by the k9 unit and all of the carryons away as well. They've never done that. They've always checked everything right there in front of everyone whenever they do.
One of the passengers was pregnant and she needed her asprin that was in her bag, and no one made an attempt to retrieve it for her or anything. They just said there's nothing we can do. She was in a rough way.
For their part, the people who operated the FOB (jet aviation) found some ibuprofen, but she need asprin.

Being stranded for several hours at an FOB did afford us all the opportunity to share our experiences and frustrations over JS and their continually nickling and diming us. A couple of lawyers were flying as well, and they had some interesting things about the clause in their contract that basically says they can do whatever they want.

For example, just because they have that in there doesn't mean it has any legal bearing.
We became members and bought a product that has materially changed. The chopper transfers for example. They haven't been removed, but simply bumped up to another tier of service that didn't even exist when we became members. That's potentially a material breach of contract. What use is grandfathering anything if they simply pick away benefits and charge you more for them? They are flirting with legality here, and I think it will blow up in their faces.

From my estimation, based on various conversations with them throughout my membership, they had roughly 4000 members when they stopped offering the chopper transfers and introduced tiers and such. They have 7000 members now, and growing it seems. It would be cheaper and more beneficial for them in the long run to ACTUALLY grandfather the 4k or so members that should receive the benefits they're slowly stripping away. We get seemingly no benefit for buying into and supporting this start up early on, except to maintain our original fee, but that's meaningless if the services for that fee are continually reduced.

Also, if we were members before any tiers were introduced, legally we should be entitled to the average of all services offered once a fee structure is introduced, according to the lawyers speaking while we were waiting.
It's all fair and well for JS to add more tiers, but we are potentially legally entitled to be averaged up as far as our benefits. For example, we should be able to keep the heli transfers if they're still offering them at a higher rate. We should get three tokens instead of two, since they're now offering four for a higher price (average). Things like that.
I don't know all the legalese. I'm sure someone here can shed light or even squash what I'm saying.

T-15.01

They are honoring it. 1) they don't sell those memberships anymore, they sold them for a very small amount of time. They sold them on the basis that empty legs/jet deals are not guaranteed, and the purchaser paid the fee on that basis. Disappointing to miss a flight or lots of flights? Sure. Against the T&Cs that the purchaser agreed to? No.

If that's what you were offered, and in writing, you have a good case to request compensation or alternative arrangements if a flight deal is cancelled by the operator. Go for it!

$15K was not for the social 'jet deals only' membership, it is for the smart membership level. You get shuttles included for that.

I don't doubt the frustration and inconvenience JS has as part of their business, but I still hold the view that members who are throwing stones at them and not acknowledging that they agreed to the very rigid/unfriendly customer service terms and conditions, are doing themselves and their common sense a bit of a disservice.

T-15.01

very fair assessment which I agree with.

millions

What compels you to weigh in and dismiss or trivialize every complaint that paying members (many of whom have been members much longer than you) voice? Your feelings have been made clear; they are on the record. I'm glad you believe you knew what you were signing up for and don't feel wronged by what you've actually received. Others feel differently.

T-15.01

probably that this is a forum, and where opinions can be freely shared. That's what compels me. You're right - I am on the record, and many of my views about JS are not positive. I call out anyone who I think is dismissing or trivializing the issue. I'm not sure I agree that I'm dismissing or trivializing anyones complaints, but I respect your view.

People come here and ask for advice, in some instances. Mine is free. And probably worth just that. But I believe that when your expectations are unrealistic, you're probably going to end up upset. JS have done a nasty job of setting very high expectations on the front facing marketing aspects of their product/service, and without doubt - this is on them, and they've contributed to a lot of dissatisfaction.

But it's not a couple of dollar cup of coffee. It's for most members a $10k or $15k or $47.5k investment. Not many people I know would download an app for free, read a few things, get excited and transact a $15k invoice without doing due diligence, unless they really don't care about the money. To later have buyers remorse and start throwing stones about the product/service and ultimately take little to no responsibility for ones own actions, is in my opinion, a poor reflection on that persons behaviour.

No one holds a gun to the members head. And if nothing else - this forum largely speaking has very negative reviews from members. Far be it from me to trivialize or dismiss their complaint, but if the complaint is primarily about something they permitted, then there's another forum for that called "I screwed up".

Apache137

That's all good and well, but a lot of the places where you're saying a person should've done DD and basically "tough luck," there is at least a question of legality, and if what they're doing in some instances would be considered breaking a contract. The rest is just opinions.... and I mostly agree with yours, but let's try and get to the bottom of whether or not they're overstepping in some places legally. Once we do that, it's something concrete everyone can see clearly instead of all this conjecture.

T-15.01

^ you have my support/agreement. My subjective responses on others rants here have never been in an effort to support or reject the legal aspects that could be in play. My hunch is, many things are legally questionable. That alone clogs courts and keeps many attorneys in business while the opposing sides duke it out. For me, if I was sufficiently annoyed, I probably would vote with my wallet, and not renew. If they have even 5000 members and $50m in annual revenue, and, as I understand a few pretty heavy-hitting investors on board, I'm assuming they'd do what they could to legally defend any member or members bringing a claim. Not that the potential ammunition of a defendant is why I'd consider a lawsuit!

While I'm perfectly ok to accept others may see a pathway that justifies them considering and even filing a claim against jetsmarter, I'm not sufficiently annoyed or aggrieved to join them.

TravelerMSY

Don't worry. Their seed capital will all be gone by the time the lawsuits get heard

T-15.01

subjective, but respect that it's your view none the less. Every raise they've done has been substantially bigger than the one before. And they seem to keep bringing in new revenue bearing customers. I'm not sure running out of cash is a short term issue for them; insuring they keep the members they bring in satisfied - well I'd say they've got their work cut out for them on that front! ;-)

Apache137

Put like that, it kind of boils down to "they're making so much money, they don't care about keeping their older members or not..."

Many members got in at 5k even. every new member is worth triple an old one... They have no financial reason to care about us old members, and they're not going out of their way in any other aspect to show it. That's very sad. Capitalism at it's finest.

I did let them know about my complaints of the most recent shuttle in the app. They first said basically "not our fault. we did all we could."
I let them know that's not how to treat customers and the main benefit of this is the convenience over commercial, and commercial would've done xyz had this happened.
They replied that they'd speak to someone in management and have them get back to me. Not holding my breath.

Townshend

For the record my Smart renewal happened without issue and I remain on the "old" Smart membership along with my grandfathered price ($9k). My credits carried over as well

peasant

What's the FAA position on this? Is Jetsmarter acting as a travel agency or a charter broker? It seems to be blurring the lines between charter & scheduled. Probably too small for them to take a view now, but will be interesting first time there is an incident.

- given that jetsmarter say that they have independent safety oversight, there will be a good case to go after them, as well as the private jet operator, if things go wrong.

- Sure, they are not selling scheduled seats to the public, but at what subscription number does that become moot, plus the fact that anyone from the public can buy a subscription? It isn't a classic charter/ corporate shuttle closed user group.

I am sure that they have lawyered up on the above, but I can see some arguments happening if/ when something goes wrong, plus increased FAA oversight.

Sykes

They sell Part 380 public charters. Under that arrangement, they're allowed to sell to the general public. They're not breaking new ground here--people have been doing this for years.

There are a few slides here on how Part 380 public charters work. The most important part is that the company selling the seats must be different than the company operating the flights (i.e. they can't fly their own planes with their own pilots):

http://nata.aero/data/files/events/s...esentation.pdf

DLH441

Even on their website, they say :


https://jetsmarter.com/faq/

It's in their FAQ. We all know that jet deals are not announced max 12 hours before the flight, most of the time it's a 4 to 10 hours notice.. Specially on "good jet deals" On some G-IV plane for exemple, it's always announced on a really really short notice.

In the US they're not listing all Delta empty legs flights and in Europe, still not any legacy flights.. According to a member here, they decided to cancel all Legacy flights (So +/- 60 to 96 seats per week - 12 seats per legacy plane). It's quite huge !

Plus they're not listing all empty legs flights of their different operators. Now since they're giving away a trial membership to anyone, good jet deals are almost full everyday.

So they can change membership rules by their own discretion. Is there something that we can do against it ?

timsparks

Has anyone EVER seen a JetDeal one week in advance???