JetSuite’s cards are sold in 10-day and 25-day plans, priced at $35,000 and $75,000, respectively. Depending on how much flying a customer can squeeze in during the run of the plan, the total cost of the flight could work out to $999 an hour for up to 12 hours of travel each day. A typical jet charter could run about $3,000 an hour.

Even so, JetSuite is still more expensive than flying first class and could be hard to justify in these straitened times. But Wilcox says there are other advantages that have a monetary value to the client. The savings in time, ability to reach smaller noncommercial airports, and the sizable personal storage space aboard a private plane make this an option for groups ranging from a party of golfers or skiers to mid-level managers visiting multiple locations on a single outing.

“Compared with commercial flying, there’s virtually no downtime,” says Dr. Lokesh Tantuwaya, a San Diego neurosurgeon who flies at least twice a month on business, often to out-of-the-way locations. “When you go to the airport, you basically park your car, walk to the airplane, and take off. You don’t even have to think about lost luggage.” He recently bought a card through JetSuite and says that it also allows him to fly out of an airport 15 minutes from his home versus the 45-minute drive to the nearest commercial airport. “It’s just so much easier.”

Other upstarts in this field have seized on the concept of "jet-pooling" to bring the price down further. Two companies, Omaha-based CoGo Jets and Florida-based Greenjets, have set up websites that allow fliers to hop a ride with other like-minded travelers and thus cut down on the per-person cost of the trip. They work with fliers who may already have fractional ownership plans or jet cards on Marquis and its competitors, such as CitationAir, Flexjet, and Sentient. Bringing along strangers, after all, helps bring down the costs and, the companies claim, should assuage any pangs of guilt over the impact of private jets on the environment. Recently, Greenjets was advertising one-way prices of around $1,200 for New York-Florida flights.

The competition doesn’t worry Marquis Jets, the 800-pound gorilla of the field, which boasts access to NetJets sizable fleet, claims Randy Brandoff, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the New York-based company. Not only is the company owned by Warren Buffett, possibly the best testimonial around these days, but Brandoff says that “with us, you know what you’re getting.”

The size of the Marquis fleet, which includes the top-of-the-line Cessna Citation X and Gulfstream 200, among other models, gives customers access to the fleet of more than 750 planes with as little as 10 hours' notice, and other benefits. Prices for the 25-hour cards begin at $132,900 for a Citation V Ultra—and go skyward. Marquis may cost more, but it touts its access to the NetJets and its solid reputation and safety record. The private-charter field has thousands of operators, and gathering enough information on the company’s safety record can be challenge.

Wilcox, an airline veteran who was one of the founding executives of JetBlue, says he agrees with Marquis that safety can’t be emphasized enough: He has brought in a flight team from his old employer, including its onetime “safety czar” Usto Schulz, along with a dozen seasoned pilots.

As the gateway drug to the private-jet lifestyle, the jet card may well survive the current cost-cutting climate—political correctness aside. Marquis' Brandoff says that a new market is opening up: people, or companies, who once owned a jet who are trading down to the jet-card world rather than giving up private flying completely.