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Options are good—until you have too many.

The private jet industry has been conjuring up a wide variety of prepaid cards that allow clients on-demand travel without the expense and commitment of owning a jet. They work much like debit cards and offer a high degree of flexibility. Typically, you get either a set dollar amount or a fixed number of flying hours—say, $100,000 or 50 hours. But with so many programs available, the decision process can be disorienting.

So for advice on the best deals, Barron’s Penta turned to Doug Gollan, founder of Private Jet Card Comparisons, a modern-day online Kelley Blue Book for private jet cards that compares over 100 programs by 60-plus characteristics. Here are his top choices, broken down by category.

Best for peak days. Holidays and other high-demand periods can wreak havoc on your private jet card plans. Surcharges on hourly rates can be as high as 40%, and users can be stuck with stricter cancellation policies and longer leads times for booking jets. StraightLine Private Air never alters its prices on peak days, and it guarantees availability at your contracted rate. The price for a jet card starts at $49,900; each trip is quoted separately based on the flight’s routing. Silverhawk Aviation and JetSuite also have no peak days, but don’t offer guaranteed availability.

Best for world travel. One of the appeals of jet cards is their pay-per-dollar or -hour system, so users know the bottom line before they board. But often, this rate is limited to a predetermined service area, which may only include the U.S. and possibly Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. If you want to fly outside the zone, you’ll be tagged a “ferry fee” to cover the cost of flying the jet back to its base after it drops you off or comes pick you up. Sometimes it even covers the costs of overnight stay for the pilots. VistaJet, by contrast, recently eliminated this ferry fee worldwide. The carrier charges $40,000 for its program, plus a $10,000 lifetime membership fee. It also offers a single-flight service for $12,000 to $17,000 per hour. Its fleet of super-midsize and long-range jets is more suitable for long-haul flights than smaller jets.

Best for short hops. Some jet card programs have minimum times for flying, which can be as high as 3 1/2 hours per day of use. This means if you take a single 45-minute flight, you will be charged as if you flew for 3 1/2 hours, or whatever the minimum is. Of all the carriers, JetSuite has the lowest minimum: 48 minutes. Its jet card program starts at $50,000. You get round-trip discounts, $50 million in liability insurance and risk coverage to cover physical injuries and accidental property damage, and service access to Cuba. Other jet card providers, including Flexjet, Private Jet Services, Sentient Jet, and VistaJet also offer one-hour minimums, but only for certain aircraft. That's while Airstream Jets charges by the mile rather than the hour, setting its minimum at 500 miles per day of use.

Flexjet's Embraer Legacy 450 Flexjet

Best for short notice. Paramount Business Jets wins top honors here, only requiring a four-hour notice to reserve a jet with guaranteed availability. Its basic jet card costs $50,000. Runners-up: JetSet Group and Wholesale Jet Club require a six-hour lead time, while Magellan Jets and Privé Jets come in at third place, with eight-hour windows.

Best for personal experiences. Jet Linx takes pride in servicing clients with a personal touch, assigning them pilots they like and starting off the flight experience in private terminals they maintain at airports. The carrier sells cards in 14 markets right now (Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Fort Worth, Houston, Indianapolis, Nashville, Omaha, San Antonio, Scottsdale, St. Louis, Tulsa, and Washington, D.C.) and plans to expand to New York and California in 2018. The cost for a starter jet card: A one-time $12,500 fee and then hourly fees based on the jet’s size, which can range from $3,375 to $8,250.