My $99 private jet experience with JetSuiteX

I had to fly up to San Francisco for a finance conference for work. Normally I would fly my favorite domestic airline from Orange County to Oakland.  But with JetSuiteX’s $99 promotion, I was able to experience my first private jet for the same price as the Southwest flight.

Why fly private with JetSuiteX

There are so many advantages of flying private.  Number 1 is avoiding the lines at TSA! Besides that, JetSuiteX provides all the comforts of a private plane at a reasonable price.  There is free wifi in the hangar and aboard the plane.  All drinks and snacks are included at no charge.  I enjoyed a Firestone Easy Jack IPA on the flight up to Concord and the Saint Archer Blonde on the way home.

The seats are so much more comfortable and the plane was more than half empty.

When you link your JetBlue to your JetSuiteX account, you can earn JetBlue points for your flight.  You will receive 250 JetBlue points on regular fare tickets and 150 points on sale and discounted tickets.  It may take up to 6-8 weeks for the JetBlue points to post.  Unfortunately, you cannot redeem JetBlue points for flights with JetSuiteX.

Booking a flight with JetSuiteX

Booking a flight is totally easy.  You can do so on their website or via their app.  I booked mine online using the $99 promotion that JetSuiteX was running.  The promotion is now over, but you can still find discounted fares at $99 and $129 each way on select dates!

Go to the JetSuiteX home page, enter your departure & destination, then pick the date and click book flight.

Choose which JetSuiteX flights you want to be on.

Choose which of the 30 seats you want to sit.  My preference is to pick a seat on the side with 2 seats since the plane is almost never full and you’ll have more space.

Enter passenger details

Pay for your reservation.

And you’ll have your reservation confirmation

The Burbank hangar of JetSuiteX

Because this is a private jet, you don’t go to the normal airport terminal.  Instead, about ½ mile away from the Burbank Airport entrance, there is a small hangar for JetSuiteX.

Terminal 2 is located about 1/2 mile away from Burbank Main Terminal at 4561 W Empire, Burbank, CA 91505.  Go down a side street to find the private hangar on your right.

You must use valet parking and it is $28 a day.  You can pay cash or use your credit card with the Curbstand app.

The terminal is pretty sparse, with a small lobby leading out to the hangar…

and the kiosk check-in stand.

To the left are two air-conditioned waiting rooms.

One with a desk & two small conference rooms and the other a more relaxed setting with light snacks, water & soft drinks.

Free wifi is available but the connection wasn’t that strong on my phone.  My phone bounced between wifi and cellular.

There were two really comfy couches to sit on inside the hangar, but that’s without the benefit of air conditioning.

A foosball table sat in the hangar for guests to pass the time while waiting for their flight.  The bathroom smelled of fresh paint, so you can tell that they’re in the process of remodeling everything.  The sign says that they’re still waiting on their new furniture.

They had workers literally putting furniture together while we were waiting for our flight.  So it is nice to see that the spartan settings will continue to get better over time.

The jet arrived at 4:50 just outside the hangar and the guests walked right off and waited for their bags at the valet area.  When you arrive in Burbank, you pick up your baggage inside the hangar.

The private jet flight

One of the best things about flying private is that you don’t have to stand in the TSA lines.  It’s great having Global Entry and TSA PreCheck to reduce the wait, but it is even better when there is no line at all.

I didn’t have to take off my shoes, put my bags through a metal detector, take my laptop out of my bag, or keep my liquids in a 3-1-1 compliant ziplock bag.  When it was time to board, our ticket was simply scanned with a smile, and we walked onto the tarmac and up the steps of the plane.

The flight was very comfortable.  On a private jet that can hold 30 people, there were only about 10 of us on the plane.  When you walk on to the plane, single seats are on the right and two seats next to each other are on the left.  My seat at 2C to Concord was on the side with two seats, which allowed me to spread out and be more comfortable.

On the way back, I was in seat 2A so that I could experience the single seat side of the plane.  I couldn’t fit my bag under the seat due to the curvature of the plane, so I scooted over to the 2 seats on the other side to stretch out and enjoy the flight more.

There is one bathroom at the back of the plane.

Wifi was turned on once we reached the 10,000 foot elevation.  The signal was pretty good, but the speeds were erratic, which is expected for in-flight wifi.  I tested the speed and the results ranged from decent to horrible.  Download speeds were as high as 2Mbps, but upload speeds were really slow.

Service was excellent on board.  Our stewardess was very attentive, took our beverage orders, and brought out some gourmet snacks.  There were plenty of choices of alcohol, wine, beer, and soda.  And there were 3 gourmet snacks to choose from.

Before you knew it, our flight was coming to an end.  Aside from some of the international flights we’ve taken in business class, this was the first domestic flight that I didn’t want to end.

Concord Terminal for JetSuiteX

The Concord waiting area was one rectangular building about that width of a double-wide mobile home.  When you arrive in Concord, your bags are waiting for you at the gate to the parking lot.  Parking is free at the Concord location.

It was air conditioned and much more polished than the Burbank location.  The wifi was just as weak in Concord as it was in Burbank, which is strange because the Concord facility looks like the design and decoration work is complete.

I used an Uber to get to the BART station ($6) so I could get into San Francisco ($6) for a total cost of $12.  Because of the JetSuiteX’s terminal location, you need to enter their specific address so that your Uber driver doesn’t arrive on the other side of the runway.  Not a good thing to do if you want to keep your 5-star rating!

If you haven’t used Uber before, use my Uber referral link to get $15 towards your first ride.  Lyft will provide $50 in credits for first-time riders.

JetSuiteX is located at 181 John Glen Drive, Concord, CA 94520.

Taking the BART, I arrived at my room at Sir Francis Drake about an hour later, so I put up my feet and relaxed a bit before heading down to grab some food at the bar.

On the way home, our flight was delayed in arriving, so they poured us some glasses of champagne.  Yeah, it was a bummer to be late, but getting a glass of champagne to sip on is more than any other airlines do for me when they are running late.

Conclusion

If you get an opportunity to, you should fly in a private jet. Although the $99 promotional pricing by JetSuiteX is now over, I did a quick look at their calendar and there are still some flights priced at $99 and $129.  The next time I’m flying to the Bay Area, the first thing I’m doing is checking the JetSuiteX calendar to see if economical fares are available.