Old Apr 16, 2016, 7:33 am
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JetSmarter is a membership program that allows members to fly on empty legs of private jets (JetDeals) and seats on scheduled private jet shuttles (JetShuttle).
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JetSmarter - discussion and experiences

Old Jul 8, 2017, 12:39 pm
  #1516  
 
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 629
Originally Posted by dval44
WOW Brad Stewart left. XOJet is a legitimate company that should have never been in bed with JS. Makes sense, though surprising it took this long.

President left and indicted for crimes, Delta Private Jets left, JetEdge empties left, Brad Stewart left the board, JetLynx left, SecondHome left. It's time to wake up, my friends. The ship is sinking.

If this was a stock, I exited my position last year (ended membership), and would now be shorting.

Brad only said empties were a "commercial agreement," but no word on how long that agreement will last. Once the XO/TMC empties are gone, there are zero empties stateside.

I would be VERY cautious with them at this point.
Sorry, forgot to add: ex-employees sued for skipping paychecks, forcing journalists to write positive stories, taking away promised benefits to members with no warnings.

I'm sorry guys. Former member, had some great experiences at a tremendous price. But this thing is going down. Fast.
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Old Jul 8, 2017, 6:04 pm
  #1517  
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Programs: DL, UA
Posts: 571
Originally Posted by micky123
CAWIKI

Paste a screen shot of your app showing the FL routes for August.
man oh man. My note said "MOST" (aka NOT all) of the shuttles were up yesterday. Sorry I didn't run down the list of all of them to specify which were and weren't. But, at a glance, it was West Coast (e.g. LA-SF, LA-LAS etc) shuttles, it was LA or OAK to HPN, LA to FL, Las Vegas to NYC, Chicago routes, Dallas ones.

The FL routes, for whatever reason, haven't yet posted. Don't shoot the messenger, and I never said the FL ones had posted. Your reply to my message, btw said only the Chicago shuttle routes had posted which wasn't and isn't what I was/am seeing.
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Old Jul 8, 2017, 6:13 pm
  #1518  
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Programs: DL, UA
Posts: 571
Originally Posted by dval44
Sorry, forgot to add: ex-employees sued for skipping paychecks, forcing journalists to write positive stories, taking away promised benefits to members with no warnings.

I'm sorry guys. Former member, had some great experiences at a tremendous price. But this thing is going down. Fast.
I enjoy the speculation! I'll agree, the signs we see on the outside aren't exactly overwhelmingly positive. But, Bradley Stewart remains under contract with Jetsmarter, from his comments, and says he is betting on them being a dominant player. Maybe he's just hedging his bets/covering his ..., but if we're taking things at face value, as they appear, then just as we can criticize the loss of HOMES and probably agree this is negative, we have to agree Stewarts comments are positive.

I think the conjecture over months and years here on FT circulates around the same core issue: the price members pay [probably] doesn't cover the costs Jetsmarter are incurring. Prices are slowly going up, members apparently continue to renew, and Jetsmarter continue to run private jet flights daily all over the world. I want them to succeed, but I think they need to rapidly increase rates. Even the new smart pricing plan where the annual fee is what it always was for the member but flights over 3 hours attract a fee, still doesn't seem enough. I think they should move to an hourly model, like Wheels Up, and like all other Jet companies do. Pay a fee for access, then a rate per hour you're in the air. If the FL-NY route, for example has 10 people and the 'hourly rate in a mid-size jet' is $4k for the jet, then it should be $400 per hour, per person. For the 2.5 hour flight, that's $1000 plus the cost of annual membership, averaged out over all the flights you take. Perhaps Jetsmarter would get a better run rate because of the volume. But I think covering their costs is the key to success if they're ever aim on banking profit, as well!
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Old Jul 8, 2017, 7:20 pm
  #1519  
 
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Florida
Programs: Hyatt Diamond. SPG Plat. Marriott Plat.
Posts: 522
Wish they had Hop a Jets empty legs
Westin is offline  
Old Jul 9, 2017, 12:48 pm
  #1520  
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 56
Talked to Globeair and Air Hamburg about JetDeals and they both told me that JS decided to stop working with them for a pricing issue. We should remind that in October 2015, GlobeAir and Jetsmarter announced a 5 years partnership together..

They told the community that they're fixing some "IT Issues" with Air Hamburg.. Another lie.

https://aviationtribune.com/executiv...with-globeair/
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Old Jul 10, 2017, 6:41 am
  #1521  
Marriott Contributor Badge
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 319
Membership Year End Stats:

Hi All,

I joined as a London-based member last year on the "Social" Tier which allowed seats only on JetDeals, about 9 months in they kindly upgraded this to Simple for the last 3 months, which allowed 1 token on sub 3 hour shuttles. I spent some time in the US during the membership year as well.

Thought some "year-end" stats would be interesting to some:

* 23 flights taken: 17 JetDeals, 6 Shuttles
* 8 flights as the only passenger on the plane
* 6 flights with every seat taken
* 4 flights on heavy jets, 4 on super-midsize, 5 on midsize, 5 on light, 3 on ultralight, 2 on turboprop
* 583 miles average flight length
* 1940 miles: Los Angeles-Atlanta longest JetDeal flight
* 112 miles: London-Birmingham shortest JetDeal flight
* 30%: JetDeal Cancellation rate (this was about 60% at the start of my membership year, around 15% now)
* Price-Paid for membership: $3900
* Average Cost Per Flight: $169

Over the year I've had my issues with JetSmarter (cancellations, changing T+Cs, dropping operators with no notice), many mentioned on here but at the end of the day I've had some incredible experiences, seen some awesome places, met great people, and it all cost me less than one RT Business Class ticket to the US. So I'm a happy camper with how it all turned out in the past year.

That being said, I'm choosing not to renew. I bought the "social" membership with the idea of being able to take friends and family to cool destinations around Europe. In recent months European JetDeals have been slashed significantly (in terms of number of operators, plane types, and routes), so now it's really only GlobeAir mustangs. While I'm grateful for the upgrade to simple for the last 3 months, I have little need for it, and since I can't bring anyone along, and none of my friends members, I tend to fly commercial anyways.

If they bring back Air Hamburg, I'd sign back up in a heartbeat.
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Old Jul 10, 2017, 7:20 am
  #1522  
 
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Florida
Programs: Hyatt Diamond. SPG Plat. Marriott Plat.
Posts: 522
Did they add some professional flight transport empty legs? been seeing them pop up
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Old Jul 11, 2017, 3:07 pm
  #1523  
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: TYO
Programs: Hyatt Globalist
Posts: 1,744
It seems they've rebranded the member initiated shuttles as 'SharedShuttle' whereby the initiating member receives flight credits for other passengers who join the trip.
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Old Jul 11, 2017, 3:18 pm
  #1524  
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 469
Originally Posted by invalyd
It seems they've rebranded the member initiated shuttles as 'SharedShuttle' whereby the initiating member receives flight credits for other passengers who join the trip.
Not quite. They've added a "SharedCharter" which is basically the Blade model, where you can charter a flight to anywhere (at full plane cost), and offer up your unused seats to other members. When those seats are purchased, you get reimbursed (in flight credits).

I don't see this moving the needle much, to be honest. Not a bad idea, in that it doesn't cost JS anything, but I don't think the demand will be very high.

EDIT: Of course, because as usual the details coming from JS are wholly unclear, I could be wrong.
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Old Jul 11, 2017, 4:41 pm
  #1525  
Suspended
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 557
Originally Posted by invalyd
It seems they've rebranded the member initiated shuttles as 'SharedShuttle' whereby the initiating member receives flight credits for other passengers who join the trip.
Originally Posted by millions
Not quite. They've added a "SharedCharter" which is basically the Blade model, where you can charter a flight to anywhere (at full plane cost), and offer up your unused seats to other members. When those seats are purchased, you get reimbursed (in flight credits).

I don't see this moving the needle much, to be honest. Not a bad idea, in that it doesn't cost JS anything, but I don't think the demand will be very high.

EDIT: Of course, because as usual the details coming from JS are wholly unclear, I could be wrong.
What's the difference between SharedShuttle and SharedCharter?
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Old Jul 11, 2017, 4:46 pm
  #1526  
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 469
Originally Posted by Nicoolio
What's the difference between SharedShuttle and SharedCharter?
There is no "SharedShuttle." There's Shared Charter and Create Your Own Shuttle.


https://watch.jetsmarter.com/shared-july/
millions is offline  
Old Jul 11, 2017, 5:03 pm
  #1527  
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Programs: AMEX Centurion, Skywards, JetSmarter, Etihad Guest, BA Executive Club
Posts: 16
are you still limited to spend a max of 3,000 USD of that reimbursed credit per trip? For Smart membership i mean
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Old Jul 11, 2017, 5:22 pm
  #1528  
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 469
Originally Posted by Boodb772
are you still limited to spend a max of 3,000 USD of that reimbursed credit per trip? For Smart membership i mean
Ask your rep. All I know is what's in the video.

On that note, it'd be a really great thing if JS hired a competent communications professional, rather than continue to have Sergey pretend he's Steve Jobs. His creepy, cult-leader-meets-Mr. Rogers style might be tolerable if he actually told us anything, but right now it's worst of all worlds.
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Old Jul 12, 2017, 6:00 am
  #1529  
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: NJ/NYC
Programs: AA EXP/LT Plat, SPG Plat/LT Plat, HHonors Gold, Hyatt Plat, IHG Plat, MR Silver
Posts: 2,786
Just had my first Jetdeal cancelled (was previously 3/3), after it had been confirmed about 12 hours in advance. Unfortunately, I had planned on using the Jetdeal for my outbound flight and a Jetshuttle for my return.

Despite cancelling the Jetdeal after confirming it, Jetsmarter won't waive the $1000 fee to cancel my Jetshuttle flight. I get that this is technically within the terms and conditions, but it's pretty customer unfriendly.

I had previously been really impressed with my entire Jetsmarter experience - legitimately had no complaints whatsoever. This seemingly small thing is pretty frustrating, and I just don't get the point (other than to try to take a few bucks out of my pocket).
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Old Jul 12, 2017, 7:37 am
  #1530  
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 469
Originally Posted by troyb
Just had my first Jetdeal cancelled (was previously 3/3), after it had been confirmed about 12 hours in advance. Unfortunately, I had planned on using the Jetdeal for my outbound flight and a Jetshuttle for my return.

Despite cancelling the Jetdeal after confirming it, Jetsmarter won't waive the $1000 fee to cancel my Jetshuttle flight. I get that this is technically within the terms and conditions, but it's pretty customer unfriendly.

I had previously been really impressed with my entire Jetsmarter experience - legitimately had no complaints whatsoever. This seemingly small thing is pretty frustrating, and I just don't get the point (other than to try to take a few bucks out of my pocket).
It one of the few ways they actually generate revenue (and probably an unreasonably large and penal liquidated damages clause). It's especially laughable that they charge $1000 where the most they could have gotten from someone else is $599.
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