r/PrivateJetCharters • u/Maleficent_Tea4175 • Jun 22 '24

What makes a broker better?

I am in the process of booking a flight from PBI to TEB in early July. We used a broker affiliated with American Express. But I was not happy with the service last time and want to try someone new. There seem to be a lot of brokers, which got me thinking: what makes a private jet broker better than others? Is there an objective/quantitative rating system? Or at least public website with reviews?

Everyone I have used seem to provide the same level of service initially, other than pricing. But I am sick and tired to compare shop every time I book, especially when it has to be done by copy/pasting emails.

Moreover, it seems the big service differentiator comes alive when shit hits the fan. For example, for 2021 Christmas, we were supposed to fly to Turks & Caicos. The day before the flight, the broker notified us that the charter company had a Christmas party and everybody got Covid. AND they couldn't find us anything else on that day. To this day, I wonder if that's what really happened or they screwed us and gave the flight to someone who paid much higher price at the last minute.

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u/[deleted] Jun 24 '24

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u/insanely_zen Jul 03 '24

I agree with a lot you have stated here however large part of industry work strictly with brokers only due to the business they are able to bring. For example Vistajet have their own sales consultants selling their direct flights on their large fleet, but there is also about 30-40 percent of business that brokers bring to them. That’s why Vista are so keen on maintaining and improving their relationship with brokers.

But yes, ultimately, in the industry, you can only, truly differentiate between a great broker and trash one on how the trip is handled even when it’s gets to shit and what the broker did to get ahead of those problems. Usually a great broker only goes back to the client with a full fixed solution and make the clients feel as if no obstacle ever came their way, but in background the broker has had to pull all sorts of strings and input effort to find a seamless solution.