Magellan offers the gift of private jet flights for the holidays

The jet card broker is making it a December to remember with its private jet gift box

Boston-based jet card and private jet charter broker Magellan Jets, which has in the past promoted jet cards for college tours, this holiday is suggesting giving private jet travel as the perfect stocking stuffer.

Unlike the iconic “December to Remember” marketing campaign (below) from Lexus, the give of private jet flying will fit in your living room but take you to 40,000 feet. 

Billing its memorable present as a “specially curated gift box made exclusively for the holidays,” the recipient gets 10 hours aboard a Bombardier Challenger 300, a bottle of the Macallan 25, the Breitling Aviator 8 Curtiss Warhawk watch and Master & Dynamic Custom Active Noise-Cancelling Wireless Over-Ear Headphones.

Magellan says its high-flying gift box starts at $110,000.

Is Magellan Jets’ Holiday Gift Box a good deal?

If you want to take the emotional part of holiday gifts out of the equation (We know that’s not a very fun way to approach to the festive season) since our website is called Private Jet Card Comparisons, here is a more analytical analysis of the deal:

• Breitling lists the retail price of the watch version Magellan shows at $5,565

• Bottledprices.com shows the Macallan 25 bottle priced between $1,600 to $1,900

• Master & Dynamic Custom Active Noise-Cancelling Wireless Over-Ear Headphones are listed at $249 on the provider’s website

• The hourly rate for a Challenger 300 based on 25 hours – the starting point for Magellan’s Elevate Jet Card – is $9,986 per hour, including 7.5% Federal Excise Tax

If you deduct the above cost of the gifts ($5,565 for the watch + $1,750 splitting the difference between the estimates for the Scotch + $249 for the headphone) from the $110,000, you are left with $102,436 to attribute to the 10 hours of flight time on the Challenger 300, or an hourly rate of $10,243.

In other words, you are paying a 2.6% premium on the hourly rate for 10 flight hours over the 25 hour Challenger jet card as sold in its Elevate program.

Since you would normally have to spend nearly $150,000 more to save the 2.6%, even if you buy gifts for your loved ones with a calculator in hand, this seems to be a fair enough deal.

After we published our analysis, Magellan Jets called us to say they actually are not charging a premium for the Challenger. You end up getting 10 hours at the same $9,986 per hour as if you bought 25 hours. However, the price of the Gift Box varies based on their cost to buy the other components.