Costco is Offering “Wheels Up!”

Well, according to the article, it does include a $4000 flight credit among other “perks”. But yes, depending on the chartered aircraft, it’s not going to get you very far., time wise.
 
Well, at $4000 per hour for a King Air, you can run out of money really fast with Wheels-Up.

For not all that much more, you can charter a real Gulfstream, carry a boatload of bags and load it with 12 people.
 
Rather fly this way and save. ;)
Boeing_Stearman_N67193.jpg
 
I had toyed with doing a charter to our FL home but even paying DL first class is a heckuva lot more reasonable. I'm just not a jet-setter, I suppose. It'd take forever to get there in a KingAir anyway.

There are no direct flights from Cincinnati to Nashville, I got quotes around $12k-16k round trip for 6, from a couple of charter operators. They wound up driving and I paid for nice suites at a downtown hotel as a consolation prize...it was my daughter's 25th b-day party.
 
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For those who don't really understand the practical use of private aircraft.... They are not ideal (or cheap) for one way trips or single trips. They are fantastic when dealing with multiple locations in a short period of time. It's not unusual for us to make 5 to 8 landings in one day.

The reasons for this can be many, but business is not the only reason.

The idea of saving an hour from NY to FL on a business jet by avoiding the TSA controlled airports is nowhere near good enough to justify a private jet flight. However, depart NY, pick up a pax outside Boston, mama and the kids get out in Daytona Beach and the guys head down to Marathon key for an afternoon of fishing, then back to Daytona. Then back to NY and Boston when the weekend is over.

Now consider that today, the airlines are not servicing many locations and such a trip may not even be possible any other way.

It's also good to note that on common legs, we are no faster than JetBlue. As they hold us up, regardless of the altitude they operate at. ATC won't let us pass them. If we use our speed, ATC will simply vector us all over the place to waste time. Leaving that lumbering A320 landing first, every time.
 
I had toyed with doing a charter to our FL home but even paying DL first class is a heckuva lot more reasonable. I'm just not a jet-setter, I suppose. It'd take forever to get there in a KingAir anyway.

There are no direct flights from Cincinnati to Nashville, I got quotes around $12k-16k round trip for 6, from a couple of charter operators. They wound up driving and I paid for nice suites at a downtown hotel as a consolation prize...it was my daughter's 25th b-day party.

Ultimate Air will fly you from LUK to Nashville if and when they pull their Dornier 328 Jets from storage and resume flying again.
 
And CincyDavid,

The Brent Spence bridge meltdown that occurred last week aside, it’s slightly less than a five hour drive for me to Nashville from the northern ‘burbs.

That makes WheelsUp, NetJets, et al, very price inefficient.

Only a longer trip with more passengers would make the charter cost more livable. And only if the departure and destination cities were not an airline “city pair.”

It will be interesting to see how many of these “WheelsUp” memberships Costco sells in the next year.

Who knows, maybe if it takes off Costco will purchase several parked 320neos or A220-300s and start “Kirkland Airways.”
 
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