For Mandarin Oriental, the partnership made sense.

“We saw families checking into our hotels on college tours, and we were serving them on a one-off basis,” said Jan D. Goessing, executive vice president for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group in the Americas. “That drove us to connect the dots and say there’s a need. We can facilitate and provide a comprehensive one-stop shop, so to speak, in regards to college search.”

An XOJet rival, Magellan Jets, offers a different cost structure. Its college tour package offers 10 hours of flight time, less than the usual increments of 25, 50 and 100 hours its customers must buy for general use. The cost is $57,000, and Magellan works with Top Tier Admissions, a college advisory firm, which will provide an admissions expert for the trip at an additional fee.

“This gets them to two to three colleges in a day, and in three to four days, they can look at all these colleges around the country,” said Joshua Hebert, the chief executive of Magellan Jets.

En route, students will be given briefing books on each college, which include information like the name of the admissions representative covering their high school and tips on whom to meet and where to go on campus.

On their return to the plane, Magellan provides notebooks from each college so students can write down their thoughts. The company then binds their notes in a book at the end of the trip.

Traveling on private jets is costly, but it may be the most efficient way to tour colleges. It is worth it to people who have more money than free time and no desire to pack into the family car for an interminable drive, said Mr. Henderson.