Wheels Up Cost in 2026: Signature Membership, Hourly Rates, and What Changed

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By Pat Sinnott, Founder of Peak Aviation Solutions in Bozeman, also on LinkedIn. Commercial multi-engine rated pilot with a BS in Flight Operations and Aviation Management, 21 years in aviation, who has overseen thousands of flights and helped grow Summit Aviation’s flight department from one airplane to 21, and who quotes, books, and flight-follows every trip he writes about.

Last updated: September 3, 2026

The Wheels Up cost of 2026 is not the number people find in older articles. A client I’d already flown signed with them this summer, and here’s what he told me, in his words:

“Pat, always great to hear from you! I’ve got a Wheels Up contract right now. They guaranteed me a challenger and gave me 25K in credits so it was a no-brainer. I’ll definitely be in touch when their contract expires next year.”

A guaranteed Challenger and $25,000 in credits. He’s right that it’s hard to argue with, and I didn’t try. I’m a small pilot-founded company competing against acquisition budgets I can’t match, and taking an offer like that is a rational decision.

What I’d want any buyer to know is that the incentive prices the first contract, not the second.

Wheels Up’s current product is the Signature Membership, launched September 3, 2025: a $200,000 minimum prepaid deposit, a $500 monthly fee, and either Dynamic market pricing or a Fixed plan reported at $9,295 an hour on the Phenom 300 and $13,495 on the Challenger 300, plus federal excise tax. The Legacy membership stopped being sold in March 2026.

How much does Wheels Up cost in 2026? Deposit, monthly fee, and Phenom 300 and Challenger 300 hourly rates

Wheels Up Signature Membership is a prepaid-deposit program requiring at least $200,000 up front, with flights on the Phenom 300 and Challenger 300 priced under either a Dynamic plan tied to market rates or a Fixed hourly plan. The press release announcing it published the deposit and the structure and no hourly rates; the rates below come from trade reporting the same day.

Item	Figure	Source and date
Minimum deposit	$200,000 prepaid	Wheels Up press release, Sept 3, 2025
Deposit tiers	$200,000, $500,000, $1,000,000	Private Jet Card Comparisons, Sept 3, 2025
Monthly fee	$500 (launch waiver ran through the end of 2025 and has expired)	SherpaReport, Sept 9, 2025; Private Jet Card Comparisons
Fixed plan, Phenom 300	$9,295 per hour at $200K tier; $8,995 at $500K; $8,695 at $1M, plus FET	Private Jet Card Comparisons, Sept 3, 2025
Fixed plan, Challenger 300	$13,495 per hour at $200K tier; $12,995 at $500K; $12,695 at $1M, plus FET	Private Jet Card Comparisons, Sept 3, 2025
Peak days	20 per year, 15 percent surcharge	Private Jet Card Comparisons, Sept 3, 2025
Daily minimums	72 minutes Phenom 300; 150 minutes Challenger 300	Private Jet Card Comparisons, Sept 3, 2025
Callout	24 to 48 hours; 5 days on peak days	Private Jet Card Comparisons, Sept 3, 2025
Extras	Delta Diamond Medallion status; deposit usable on Delta tickets; guaranteed access nationwide plus 225 miles offshore	Wheels Up press release, Sept 3, 2025

Peak days, daily minimums, and callout rules

Signature carries 20 peak days a year with a 15 percent surcharge, a 72-minute daily minimum on the Phenom 300 and 150 minutes on the Challenger 300, and a 24- to 48-hour callout that stretches to five days on peak dates. Federal excise tax of 7.5 percent applies on top. The Wheels Up hourly rate is not published on the company’s own site, so treat the figures above as the trade-reported numbers at launch.

Conversion has been quick: more than 1,200 Signature members and over half the active member base as of the second quarter of 2026, per its Q2 2026 results, reported 4 August 2026.

What happened to the old Core membership and the $8,500 dues?

If you’ve seen “Wheels Up costs $8,500 a year” online, that’s the Legacy structure, the program that replaced the original Core membership. As of June 2024 it was an $8,500 initiation fee plus $8,500 in annual dues with a $100,000 minimum fund deposit for individuals, per SherpaReport.

Two changes ended it. In December 2025, Wheels Up moved its King Air turboprops off guaranteed capped rates and onto fully dynamic pricing effective January 1, 2026 (Private Jet Card Comparisons, Dec 3, 2025). In March 2026 it stopped selling Legacy memberships altogether (Private Jet Card Comparisons, Apr 29, 2026).

So the entry price moved from $17,000 in fees plus a $100,000 fund to a $200,000 deposit plus $6,000 a year in monthly fees. That’s the single biggest thing a 2024 article won’t tell you.

Does Costco still sell a Wheels Up membership?

No. The Costco Wheels Up membership launched in November 2020 at $17,499 for the first year, bundling a $3,500 Costco Shop Card and $4,000 in flight credit, per AvWeb. The partnership ended after 2022, and Costco no longer lists it, per SlashGear (Sept 21, 2025). The Wheels Up membership Costco sold is gone, and the 2026 entry price sits a long way from $17,499.

What was the Wheels Up private flight credit, and does it still exist?

The $4,000 flight credit sat inside that $17,499 first-year price alongside the Shop Card. AvWeb reported what the bundle contained, not how the credit worked, and no published terms say how it had to be spent or whether it expired, so I won’t guess. Nothing like it is on sale through Costco today. Credits still turn up in current sign-up offers, like the $25,000 my client was given, but those are negotiated inside a contract rather than published.

What changed at Wheels Up since 2023?

Two changes matter to somebody deciding today.

A major airline led a $500 million investment in September 2023 and held 36.3 percent of the company as of a June 2026 filing, so a large carrier stands behind it. And the fleet was modernized: Wheels Up retired the Citation X and Hawker 400XP in April 2026 and now runs a controlled jet fleet of Phenom 300s and Challenger 300s, which means a newer, more consistent airplane than the program flew a few years ago.

As with any program, read the refund and escrow terms before you wire a six-figure deposit. That is not a comment on Wheels Up; it is what I would tell you about a deposit anywhere.

What does a $200,000 deposit cost you in a year? The Deposit Float

Here’s the cost line I add to every membership comparison, and it isn’t on any program’s table. The cost for Wheels Up starts the day the money leaves your account, not the day you fly.

The Deposit Float is Peak Aviation Solutions’ term for the yearly cost of parking a prepaid membership deposit: the return that money would have earned elsewhere, plus the program’s fixed fees, added to your flying cost before the first hour is flown.

Take the $200,000 Signature entry. If that cash would otherwise earn 4 percent, a number you should replace with your own, the float is $8,000 a year. Add $6,000 in monthly fees and the Wheels Up membership cost is $14,000 a year before an hour is flown.

Fly 25 hours and that’s $560 an hour on top of the rate, which turns a $9,295 Phenom 300 hour into roughly $9,855 before tax. Fly 10 hours and it’s $1,400 an hour.

Pay-as-you-go carries no float. You approve a specific trip, wire for that trip, and your capital sits in your account until then. That’s not a moral argument; it’s a line on the spreadsheet that memberships leave off.

About the sign-up incentives

My client’s $25,000 in credits and a guaranteed Challenger is not an outlier. Several programs are running heavy first-time incentives right now, including free hours and large flight credits, and as a small operator I’ll be honest that it’s very hard to compete with that.

Two things are worth holding alongside the offer. The incentive prices the first contract; the renewal prices the next five years, and that’s the number to run before you sign. And an acquisition budget that large tells you what your signature is worth to them.

What Peak’s own light-jet hours cost against the reported Signature fixed rate

Wheels Up pricing on the Signature fixed plan is not published by the company. The figures here are trade-reported and no revision has been reported since launch, which makes them usable for a comparison as long as you know where they came from. At the $200,000 deposit tier the Phenom 300 is reported at $9,295 an hour, or about $9,992 once the 7.5 percent federal excise tax lands (Private Jet Card Comparisons, Sept 3, 2025).

No fuel policy for the plan has been published either, so I cannot put a number on it: $9,295 is the rate, not necessarily the whole hourly. The Peak figure below has fuel inside it.

Three clients’ complete booking histories with us, 14 light-jet trips and 50 hours, came to $7,210 an hour with tax already inside it. That is three clients rather than our whole book, and the wider book prices light jets a little higher. Same basis throughout: what was paid, over airborne hours, with positioning counted. On the same hours that is roughly 28 percent under the reported Signature rate, and it is the widest spread I show anywhere on this site.

Those two numbers measure different things, so let me join them. The reported $9,295 is what an aircraft bills for time in the air. The $7,210 is total paid divided by hours airborne, so repositioning, the operator’s daily minimum, one-way legs, and federal excise tax all sit inside it.

These are real booked trips, picked to show what a complete trip costs, not a price list I can hold for you, and on a well-positioned day the same flying prices materially lower. Both figures are true, and the on-demand ranges further down this page are quote-stage numbers, a third measurement again.

Four things keep that comparison honest. The Signature rate is fixed and mine is not, so you are comparing a known price to a market one. It does not price the guarantee, the Delta status, or the deposit’s other benefits. It assumes the airplane was available on the day. And it prices flying that starts in 2023 at a 2025 rate card, so the older trips sit closer to the Signature number than the percentage makes them look.

A Wheels Up review from someone who competes with them

I’ve also picked up clients who left, and I want to be careful about how I put this, because I don’t think it reflects a lack of effort on anyone’s part.

The two things people bring me are price increases and schedule reliability. At that volume a great deal of what shapes a schedule sits outside an operations team’s control, and I believe they do the best they can with what they’re handed.

Those are also two things a smaller operation can hold onto, which is the honest reason people call. When you’re flying a few dozen trips a year, the person who quoted the trip is the person who answers the phone about it.

Wheels Up vs NetJets: which is better?

NetJets vs Wheels Up is a fair comparison to run, because the two sit closest to each other on entry price. They are still different products for different calendars.

• Entry: NetJets’ Card275 is $215,000 for 25 hours on the Phenom 300 at $8,600 an hour with tax included; Wheels Up Signature is a $200,000 deposit at $9,295 an hour plus tax on the same airplane. NetJets limited new card sales in late July 2026, so its on-ramp for new buyers is now a share.
• Restricted days: NetJets’ Card275 carries 90 blackout days; Wheels Up Signature has 20 peak days with a 15 percent surcharge.
• Fleet: NetJets flew 845 aircraft as of March 2026; Wheels Up’s controlled fleet is Phenom 300 and Challenger 300 only.
• The Delta angle is unique to Wheels Up: Diamond Medallion status and the ability to spend your deposit on Delta tickets.

The complete NetJets numbers are in NetJets cost per hour. For the fee stack every card adds on top of its rate, see how much a jet card costs.

Is Wheels Up worth it?

For my client, it may well be. He wanted a guaranteed Challenger and the credits made the entry cheap, and at his hours the math can work. He’ll know in a year, and so will I.

Utilization is what actually decides it. Under 50 hours a year, no program beats booking per trip, and fractional is off the table entirely. Between 50 and 100 hours, a fixed-rate membership starts earning its keep if you fly on peak dates or inside short callouts. Past 100 hours the conversation moves to a share, and past 250 to owning the airplane. The full ladder is on the private jet membership hub, and the three-model view is on charter vs jet card vs fractional.

What does it cost to fly Wheels Up for two hours, and what does the same flight cost without a membership?

On-demand charter has no deposit behind it, and what drives the number is on our private jet charter cost page.

Peak’s quote history over the past year puts light jets at roughly $4,000 to $4,500 per flight hour all-in, midsize $4,500 to $5,000, super-midsize $5,000 to $6,500, and heavy jets from $6,500 up to $13,000 or more, with fuel, crew, and landing fees inside the number and a two-hour daily minimum from most operators. Those are quote-stage ranges, not what a specific trip settles at.

A two-hour Phenom 300 leg runs about $8,000 to $9,000 plus tax on demand when the airplane is positioned nearby, against about $18,590 for the same two hours on the Signature fixed rate before tax. That is the Wheels Up flight cost for the leg against an on-demand quote for the same airplane.

The cost of flying Wheels Up on the fixed plan is knowable in advance, which is a real part of what the deposit buys. Inside the 24 to 48 hour callout on an ordinary date, or on a peak day booked the five days out the program requires, the membership’s guarantee can beat anything I can source, and I’ll say so when it does. On an ordinary Tuesday with lead time, it rarely comes close.

Frequently asked questions about Wheels Up cost

How much is a Wheels Up membership?

The Wheels Up Signature Membership, launched September 3, 2025, requires a minimum $200,000 prepaid deposit and carries a $500 monthly fee, according to Wheels Up’s press release and reporting by SherpaReport and Private Jet Card Comparisons. Deposit tiers of $500,000 and $1,000,000 buy lower fixed hourly rates. The former Legacy membership, at $8,500 initiation plus $8,500 annual dues, stopped being sold in March 2026.

Is Wheels Up worth it?

Wheels Up is generally worth it for flyers logging 50 or more hours a year who want a fixed hourly rate on the Phenom 300 or Challenger 300, fly where that fleet is dense, book ahead of the 24- to 48-hour callout, and value Delta Diamond Medallion status. It is a weaker value below 50 hours, for anyone who wants to pick the specific aircraft, and for those who prefer not to prepay a $200,000 deposit.

Does Costco still sell Wheels Up memberships?

No. Costco sold a Wheels Up membership from November 2020 at $17,499 for the first year, including a $3,500 Costco Shop Card and $4,000 in flight credit, according to AvWeb. The partnership ended after 2022, and Costco no longer offers it, per SlashGear’s September 2025 report. The Legacy membership that replaced Core was discontinued for new sales in March 2026.

Which is better, Wheels Up or NetJets?

Neither is better outright. NetJets offers a fleet of about 845 aircraft, a $215,000 25-hour card with tax included and 90 blackout days, and shares from roughly $360,000 a year plus capital, though it limited new card sales in July 2026. Wheels Up offers a $200,000 deposit membership with 20 peak days, a Phenom and Challenger fleet, and Delta benefits. Fleet depth favors NetJets; flexibility on dates favors Wheels Up.

What is the Wheels Up cost per hour?

Under the Signature Fixed plan, the Wheels Up cost per hour was reported at $9,295 on the Phenom 300 and $13,495 on the Challenger 300 at the $200,000 deposit tier, falling to $8,695 and $12,695 at the $1,000,000 tier, plus 7.5 percent federal excise tax, according to Private Jet Card Comparisons on September 3, 2025. Dynamic plan pricing varies by date, route, and demand.

How much does a 2-hour private flight cost?

A two-hour private flight on a light jet such as the Phenom 300 typically books for about $8,000 to $9,000 plus federal excise tax on demand, based on Peak Aviation Solutions’ quote history at $4,000 to $4,500 per flight hour all-in with a two-hour daily minimum. The same two hours on the Wheels Up Signature fixed rate cost about $18,590 before tax, which is the Wheels Up cost to fly that leg on the fixed plan.

Know the product you’re actually buying

The Wheels Up cost question has a clean 2026 answer: $200,000 down, $500 a month, and about $9,300 an hour on a Phenom 300 before tax, at a company running a newer and simpler fleet than it did three years ago. That is the cost of Wheels Up membership before you count the float on the deposit. If it fits your hours and your routes, sign it the way my client did, with your eyes open and the renewal price already calculated.

Want to see the same trips priced with no deposit?

On the clock: the trip comes to me, the short list goes back the same day with tail numbers on it, and nothing is owed until you approve one airplane. No deposit sits anywhere in that sequence.

Send me your last few trips and I’ll quote them the way we quote everything: one to three dozen operator quotes pulled per trip, narrowed to two to five hand-picked options in about four to five hours, each naming the tail number, year, refurbishment, WiFi, and the operator’s ARGUS or Wyvern rating, fuel inside the hourly figure, and nothing wired until you pick one. Our empty leg alerts will also watch your routes for the repositioning flights that price well under any fixed rate when one lands on your corridor.

Two checks sit behind every option I send. An operator clears our Operator Vetting File before I quote it at all: safety rating verified, an Additional Insured Certificate of Insurance, a W9, and a copy of the D085, the FAA operations specification listing the aircraft authorized under that operator’s Part 135 certificate, so I can confirm your exact tail is on it. The trip itself then gets the Total Flight Review, our own internal check run within 24 hours of every flight, which confirms a Green crew on a Wyvern PASS report or an ARGUS TripCHEQ and works through weather, TFRs, NOTAMs, catering, ground transportation, and FBO callouts for early or late operations. It is all written out on our safety page.

Request a quote and put it next to your Wheels Up cost math.